City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, folks. It's 6.30 on June 1st, and I'm going to call the State and City Council meeting to order. Would you please join me in the flag salute? all right thank you everyone on councils are present and accounted for is there any additions to the agenda Julia this council have any additions to the agenda okay any declaration of ex parte contact conflict of interest bias etc brownies excluded All right, opportunity for public comment. The council will now receive public comment. We value your input and ask that remarks be shared respectfully. The council's role is to listen at this time and may direct staff to follow up as needed. Speakers will be called one at a time and asked to state their name and city of residence before their three minutes of comment. And Noreen, Ms. Chamberlain, you're the only person to want to speak tonight, so come on up.

Good evening. My name is Noreen Chamberlain at 1624 East Burnett, Staten. And I just came tonight to talk about the Staten Pool. We had our lovely meeting last week, and we have kind of a groundswell of support, and we want to carry that forward. So I sent Julia a letter or email today, and I asked if we could have a pool party pledge night. June the 19th. It's a Friday night at 6 o'clock. And probably, depending on weather, but might be right here in the parking lot. I'd love to have a barbecue, but we're all old and no manpower, so it might be pizza or I don't know. I'm just going to say free food, and people can come and pledge. And so I don't know if I need approval or whatever. It would be nice to have this building available, just restrooms and whatever, maybe water. And so I'm asking if it's okay. It's Friday night.

Go ahead, Julia.

Yes, I received that email from Ms. Chamberlain, and I forwarded it to Melanie and Howard because they're the ones that sort of coordinate events and the event permits. So we will coordinate with you on logistics on that.

Okay. And so does that date look okay, though, before I put it out?

Can we wait until tomorrow and maybe we can touch base tomorrow?

Is that okay? People have told me I could use some billboards possibly like the library billboard and a few things like that so we could get the word out so that people could come. And that's a little bit of the urgency. So that's the only thing I had tonight. Thank you very much.

It does look like the community center is open on that night, but we'll coordinate with you tomorrow and touch base.

Okay. Anybody else for public comment real quick? Doesn't look like it. Move to consent agenda from May 18th, city council work session minutes. May 18th, city council regular session minutes and resolution number 26-013, reappointment and new appointment of members to the budget committee. What would council like to do?

Mr. Mayor.

Councillor Carey.

Oh, me. Councillor Sims. Make a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. Okay. I second. Okay.

Motion and a second to accept the consent agenda as submitted. Any further discussion?

Mr. Mayor.

Councilor Ortt.

I just want to thank our budget committee members, current and new members that are joining. Thank you for your service. We really appreciate you, the work that you do on the budget committee.

So acknowledged and I support that as well. All right. Any further discussion on the consent agenda? Okay, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Motion carries 5-0. No presentations tonight. No public hearing. Moves us to general business. Resolution number 26-014. Adopting fees, charges, and rates and repealing resolution number 25-009. And it looks like Randy's joining us tonight in the place of James. So go ahead.

That's why you got to sit up at the table. But you do need to push the button on your microphone so it's green. There you go.

Okay. All right. So Mayor Brian Quigley and the State and City Council, James Brand, the Finance Director, and myself, Randy Huberger, the Assistant Finance Director, want to talk about Resolution No. 26-14, Adopting July 1, 2026 City Fee Schedule. At least annually, the city reviews its fees, charges, rates, and fines. The attached fee schedule, Exhibit A, contains the new proposed city charges. Most of the fees stayed the same while a few were increased. Most of the increases were keeping with the city's rising costs due to higher personnel costs and inflation. The residents' utility bill rates changed in line with the utility rate study. that was approved by the council in Resolution 1090 in February of 2024, and the rate changes will be changed in July 2026 as followed. Transportation, there will be no change. Water usage will be no change. Water fixed rates will be 3%. Wastewater rates will be increased 3%, and stormwater rates will be increased 3%. Under the community and economic development. We added two new deposits the city engineer review and the transportation review Exhibit a represents the proposed fee schedule that will be effective July 1 2026 Which is the start of the next fiscal year? the final approved rates will be made publicly available on the city website and The staff recommends approval for Resolution 26-014, and we'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Okay, thank you.

And just as a reminder, just for anybody, if they're watching and wondering if there isn't a lot of conversation, the Council did have a work session on this to ask questions at the last meeting.

Yep. Okay.

Thank you.

This is an opportunity for a public comment on Resolution 26-014. Okay. Council discussion?

Mr. Mayor. Councillor Paddy. Yeah. Just in reviewing this kind of and reflecting over some of the things that we have heard just in regards to annexations and development in general, I'm wondering if we have appetite on council to discuss further. Like I realize in the memo staff prepared, it sort of addresses this system development charges are going to be recalculated to include CPI and everything. but i wonder if we should talk about maybe increasing those beyond even that and trying to make these a little bit more just so that we can kind of pay into the development of our city and things like that just some of the concerns that we heard from the citizens i feel like maybe that would address some of that but i'm curious what other counselors and the mayor has to has to say about that okay good good question council mr mayor council work

Aren't there several of the system development charges that we are increasing? Like we did, didn't we, looking at you Jennifer, didn't we recently do, didn't we recently do some analysis to increase?

I can speak to that. Thank you. We did within the last year or two, certainly in my tenure, I can't remember the exact year, we did look at the system development charges believe, stormwater and wastewater. So, but you need to do a great study. You can't just, you have to have the methodology and rationale for raising them. So we can certainly look at that, you know, with a bigger context, a more.

But I thought we were doing that with all of them.

We should, we have not done that. We're not currently in the process of updating our SDCs. We don't have a contract, but we did do one. And I'm not sure if we have a budget for updating the methodology. I think we do, but I'm not 100% certain if we do within this.

It was transportation and wastewater. And so our wastewater used to be around 4,000 for a single family home, and now it's like 11,000. So you did increase that by quite a bit, and transportation as well. I think it was around a little bit less than 4,000 for single-family home, and now it's more like 7,500. So if you were to build a single-family home now, we've had a few in Phillips Estates, and that's why I remember. It's about $33,000 people are paying in system development charges and about anywhere between 3,500 to 4,000 in school excise tax. But like Julia said, you looked at transportation and wastewater. But usually it's based on the master plan that Public Works does.

So did that answer your question?

I think for me, that does answer my initial question is like, hey, can we just increase these a little bit to accommodate? And it sounds like we have to have a methodology in place to justify that. And so I guess in that vein, I'm just wondering what, if any, benefit there would be to an additional study to demonstrate a need for that. Do we anticipate that there is a need for increasing those further? Just because of what we heard as far as folks feeling like our infrastructure is crumbling and we can't really, you know, pay for it. So if we're going to develop further, we should probably pay for that, right? That's my thought.

Yeah. And the basis for that would be an updated master plan. That's sort of the start of that. And then that differentiation between what's development driven versus what's just everyday usage driven. And that's how you differentiate your SDCs from your user fees. And then in transportation, that's more challenging because we, that's the street fee, but it's not certainly intended to cover 100% of what isn't covered by the, transportation's more complicated because you have other revenue streams for transportation too. You have to get the gas tax and stuff like that.

All right, Julia, so how many total SDCs are there?

There are a parks SDC, wastewater SDC, stormwater SDC,

water sdc and transportation sdc right so there's five and we've only most recently updated two of the five that's correct so to counselor patty's point how do we know that that's paying for future growth you rely on the master plans and the sdc methodology that you have in place we that that's how you do you need to update your master plans update your methodology i understand so do we have a calendar for updating the master plans

Not specifically. We do, I believe in our budget, we have budget for master plan updates, but we have to have the ability to do that staff-wise. And one of them was the Parks SDC, or the Parks Master Plan, which actually would come from Park SDC. So we have the funding, we just don't have the time at this moment. We haven't had a We don't have it scheduled.

I don't necessarily want to make this an entire discussion about SDCs, but Councilor Patty does have a point. And I guess another question I have is we're about to look at these fees and we know we all talked about the pool fees and increasing that, but where does that fit now that the levy has failed?

So the pool fees that are proposed are based on what we assumed for the May election. If the pool remains open, we will be bringing back additional fee amendments to the council for the pool.

Okay. Thank you. Council?

Mr. Mayor?

Councilor Warren?

Okay. So one of my issues, Councilor Patti hit the nail on the head, is with the annexation or infrastructure. So are you saying that we can't, the council can't say we want to do a SDC analysis without updating a master plan?

No, you absolutely can. The information, though, probably isn't going to result in any significant changes without having a master plan update that identifies more projects or more need or different things. So we can do an analysis at any time and update that, just like we can do utility rate studies and things like that. But for SDC, it's based on the projects and it's based on the growth projections. And so if you don't do an updated plan, you don't have a rationale for the changes that are then feeding into the system development charge changes.

Okay. So one of my biggest concerns is that if anyone can come in and say whatever annexation, whatever land they want to annex in, they want it to be high density. And we can't say no because we don't have an updated comprehensive plan. We don't have any updated plans. Everybody comes in and says they want high density. none of our plans have accounted for that, none of them. Because we don't assume that everyone is going to come in and build 500 apartment complexes, like apartments in every single place. this is kind of a horse before the cart situation so what how how are we supposed to plan for growth if we can't plan for growth because we don't have the plans plan for the growth so let me do this um so we are currently in the process of updating our stormwater master plan um but let me

work with staff over the next few weeks and see if we can't get a plan for how we might be able to expedite those. I believe that we have budget for several updates, and let me see what we can do to try to expedite some of that, and then that will feed into SDC updates. And just to be clear, SDCs aren't shown as being updated on here because we update that based on the CPI through the end of June. So we'll be coming back to you. And so we certainly will have information for you when we come back to Council to propose updates to the SDCs.

Okay.

Julie, when you come back to us with that, I remember seeing a comparison of SDCs in other communities. That's going to be included in that presentation?

It will now.

Okay. Thank you. All right. Further discussion, Council, on 26014? Okay. What would Council like to do?

I have a question.

Go ahead, Councilor.

If we have to wait for the CPI to come out to update half of this, why are we doing this now? Why aren't we doing it?

I can answer it but does Randy want to?

Because a lot of our fees need to be changed in our software systems by July 1st so that we're utility bills need to be updated.

Okay. And then I, Mr. Mayor. Go ahead. Just one last thing. This is like knowing that our comprehensive plan needs to be knowing that our comprehensive plan needs to be updated and that several of our master plans need to be updated because they're out of date, which is not something that I don't think that we really understood how that worked when we make a 20-year plan. One, I really feel like that needs to be on a schedule, and two, I feel like the budget committee absolutely should get together and figure out if there's ways that we can expedite the process to get those plans updated. Otherwise, there really is no reason for us to be sitting up here. We have no way to guide the way that our city looks.

That's all I say. And I will double check the budgets. I believe that we put into the budget, again, at least in I think parks and transportation, an update, I'll have to double check water. And we just did the wastewater for the SDCs, not necessarily the master plan. So there might not be a need for the budget committee to move money around if it's already in the budget, but we'll get back to you on that as well.

Okay, thank you. So just to confirm, the increases that the council is about to adopt, We're already part of a study from resolution and 1090 in February 24. Right? Is there anything other than those? Just want to make sure I'm looking at the same thing here.

Is there any additional not to rates? Randy went through the other changes. So the pool and the deposit for community and economic development. Yeah.

Okay, thank you. Council.

Mr. Mayor, I had a question. Councilor Sims. I think this is for Julia, but as far as the comprehensive plan, do we have to update our master plans prior to, or can we do that in conjunction with the comprehensive plan?

It's potentially a separate but parallel process. I'll say each one of those is a lift. Each one of those involves public outreach, public input, consultants, town halls. So it's just a... doing everything all at once it might be we can talk and see if there's way to ways to expedite that but it's not it's not an easy lift from a staff standpoint um which is why generally it's like you do one at a time okay um but that said let me let's see what we can what we can do thanks

Is there an opportunity, Julia, to make it more expeditious, expeditiously? Is there an opportunity to bend that out, or does it have to be done at the planning level?

I'm sorry, say that again?

Can we hire a third party to do the comprehensive plan or the master plans, or does it have to be staffed?

it doesn't have to be staff, but it costs a lot of money if you hire it out. And, and often you hire a consultant and staff still does a heavy lift because there's a lot of public involved. You know, there's the, there's just logistics, but you, you can still, you know, we can look into that maybe.

Yeah. I understand. I'm looking at it from a standpoint of speeding up the process because of the pressure that we're facing right now.

No, it hurt. And I think that there could be some opportunities maybe with the council of governments or some other firm that might be able to, help provide some additional assistance.

Okay. All right, council.

Mr. Mayor.

Councilor Ortt.

I move to adopt resolution number 26-014 as presented. Okay.

Seconded. All right. There's a motion and a second to adopt resolution number 26-014 as presented. Any further discussion? Melanie, can you pull the council, please?

Councilor Hayes.

YES.

COUNSELOR ORT. YES. COUNSELOR PATTY. YES. COUNSELOR KERRY. YES. COUNSELOR SIMS. YES. MOTION CARRIES 5-0. OKAY.

THANK YOU. NEXT ITEM IS ORDINANCE NUMBER 26-003, ANNEXATION AND ZONE CHANGE FOR PROPERTY ON GOLF LANE. JENNIFER.

YES. THANK YOU, MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL. MY NAME IS JENNIFER CICILIANO, THE COMMUNITY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR. STATEN. BEFORE YOU THIS EVENING IS THE SECOND READING OF ORDINANCE NUMBER 26-003 REGARDING ANNEXATION OF APPROXIMATELY 21 ACRES LOCATED ON GOLF LANE WITH A DESIGNATION OF MEDIUM DENSITY RESIDENTIAL ZONING. THE CITY COUNCIL CONDUCTED A PUBLIC HEARING ON THIS APPLICATION ON MAY 18, 2025, I MEAN, EXCUSE ME, At the time, the council received the staff report, heard the testimony of the applicant, accepted public testimony, and completed deliberations. Following the deliberations, the city council voted three to two to approve the application and advance the ordinance to the second reading. As a reminder, the public hearing was closed at the previous meeting, so no new evidence may be submitted or considered at this stage unless the council chooses to formally reopen. the record. So the purpose of tonight's agenda is to conduct the second reading required by the charter and consider final enactment of number 26-003. So I'd be happy to answer any questions if you have them.

Okay. Thanks, Jennifer. Council? Jennifer, I think you just said it, but I want to confirm the only reason why there's no public comment is because the record has been closed, correct?

Yes.

What would council like to do?

Mr. Mayor.

Councilor Ortt.

I move to approve ordinance 26-003 approving the application KSD properties LLC for annexation land use file number 5-02 slash 24 as presented by staff.

Is there a second? SECONDED. OKAY. THERE'S A MOTION AND A SECOND TO APPROVE ORDINANCE NUMBER 26-003 AS PRESENTED.

During the last hearing, Aaron Frictal made some comments about Whitney Lane. And I'm not really sure what the... I know that there's some history there. I know that there's supposed to be some realignment. And maybe this has nothing to do with these two things, but I think it would be... good information for the council to have as a refresher because again I don't I know that there's some stuff and then there's obviously some newer councils not obviously but there are some newer councillors on the council since even that was brought up previously and maybe Councillor Petty you know I just know that there's something and there was a comment made by the the property owner's representative that they changed the amount of houses that they were gonna put on that property because it was gonna trigger the need to realign Whitney Lane. It was gonna trigger something to where they would have to do some sort of increase and i want it on record that that is concerning to me that 20 less houses and going from one house on that property to 74 houses on that property is a significant change and it is concerning to me about how those cars are going to get in and out onto gulf road Again, I understand that that has nothing to do with this annexation, but it is a concern. And I would like more information about the history and what triggers Whitney Lane to be realigned.

Thank you. I'm welcome to write up a memo maybe for the next weekly report or maybe the, and I can give you a copy of that MOU and explain it a little.

Thank you. That would be awesome. I appreciate it.

Okay. Any further discussion? Melanie, will you pull the council on this one, please?

Councilor Hayes?

No.

Councilor Ortt? No. Councilor Patty?

Yes.

Councilor Carey?

Yes.

Councilor Sims?

Yes.

Motion carries 3-2. Okay.

Thank you. That leads us to ordinance number 26-004, annexation and zone change for property on Schaaf Road. Jennifer?

So before you, you have the second reading of ordinance number 26-004 regarding an annexation of 17 acres located on Schaff Road, 11641 Schaff Road. You conducted a public hearing on May 18th. At the hearing, the council received the staff report, heard testimony, and the applicant's representative testimony and completed deliberations. The City Council voted three to two to approve the annexation but with a change of designation from high density to medium density residential. Since these actions differ from the applicant's request and the Planning Commission recommendation and the staff needs additional time to write up the findings, because the conclusions were different. So staff with consultation of the city attorney believes that we should revise the findings carefully and table this ordinance to a future date. I'm not sure if I put which date, probably the next council meeting.

I think there's two options. One is the June 15th meeting, and then one is just to a future date where there would be new notice once that date is set.

Okay. And the applicant's representative was not able to be here tonight, and that was another reason why we need it to be tabled.

Okay, that's it. Council discussion?

Mr. Mayor.

Councilor Hayes.

Jennifer. So you heard no more from the butlers, their attorney, or anybody who was working on this? You heard nothing?

Honestly, I've not heard. I mentioned that the applicant's representative, she flew out like the next day, like 4 a.m. in the morning, so I have not. been in contact with her. She told me prior that I think she sent me an email in the middle of the night saying, can you please table this? Because she had to go for medical reasons.

Okay.

So I don't know if they're good with that or not.

I guess that answers that one.

Okay. Anybody else? Councillor Sims, go ahead.

Yeah, I have a question as far as the zoning. So if we continue and do a second reading of the ordinance, would that continue to be a medium density zoning or do we have to reopen the record if the density has changed?

So potentially, you will know that we do have an executive session later on this week, and we will be discussing the findings there, and I think some of that will be discussed at that time.

So I guess the question is, I know we're discussing it, but I mean, if we continue for a second reading, you have to maintain the medium density. zoning, correct or not?

Uh, Ross will be able to advise you of that at our next meeting.

Okay.

Or at the, I think if you continue it for the, for the set, you're basically doing the same thing you did at the last meeting where you basically did the first reading and then you have a second reading. So you're just continuing the second reading. And if, um, you'll have to, um, you'll have to do something to include the new findings and, or, um, have additional discussion if you need to after the feedback from the executive session. So our recommendation is to continue it either to the June 15th or indefinitely, but I think what Jennifer said is we recommend the first option to continuing to the June 15th meeting.

Thanks.

Okay.

What does council want to do?

Mr. Mayor.

Councillor Paddy.

Yeah, Julie, I have a general hypothetical question. And if you don't know the answer to this and we need to talk to Ross, that's okay. I'm happy to wait for Ross's read on this. if something like this were to go forward, um, and it is appealed at the Luba level, we've already heard, uh, what the costs would be for legal retaining and everything else on that. Is there an option to just not, um, defend in Luba if there was to be an appeal brought?

Um, The challenge is, in this case, the likely appellant would be the applicant. So essentially, we have to defend ourselves to LUBA because they're not going to defend us for them. A lot of times when you have a situation where there's an appeal, it's somebody from the outside appealing the decision that counsel makes and then the applicant defending that. But if it was the applicant is the one that's appealing, then you really don't have a choice but to defend it at LUBA.

I understand that. And thank you for clarifying. My question, though, is, I don't want to see costs incurred to the city over this. And so my question is, if we as a council look at this, and we're like, we don't want to spend that on retaining a lawyer to defend that, do we as council have the option to do that after this?

You have the option as a council to do what?

Not defend it in LUBA.

I guess that's a question for Ross. I don't know the answer to that.

Thank you. My speculation is it would be a default judgment because it didn't show up. I said my speculation is it would be a default judgment because we didn't defend ourselves. I'm not an attorney. All right. Council? What would you like to do? Mr. Mayor? Go ahead.

Councilor Sims. I move that the City Council continue the second reading in consideration of Ordinance No. 26-004 regarding the application of Kevin and Paige Butler for annexation land use file No. 10-08-25 until June 15, 2026. Second. Second.

Okay, we have a motion and a second to continue the second reading ordinance number 26-004 until June 15th, 2026. Any further discussion, council? Melanie, can you pull the council on this one, please?

Councilor Hayes? Voting to continue. Yes or no? Councilor Ortt? Yes. Councilor Patty?

No.

Councilor Cary? Yes. Councilor Sims?

Yes.

Motion carries four to one.

Okay. Thank you. That moves us to communication from city staff. Julia?

I just have a couple. I wanted to let you know we continue to get complaints about the Lone Oak Cemetery and I know after a council meeting several weeks ago. The next day, there was some activity at the cemetery, but apparently it was only half. I actually spoke with somebody today associated with the Odd Fellows, and she said that the Odd Fellows maintains half of that Lone Oak Cemetery and the Masons maintains the other half. And so she actually said that they're meeting with the Masons I think next week to discuss the cemetery and ownership of the cemetery. And I said we would very much like to be included or looped into those conversations if possible. I just wanted you to know that we're continuing to work through it and that there might be some avenues for us to try to help facilitate. You know, I just keep saying, you know, we're happy to help facilitate a cleanup party, but we can't do that without permission. So that's I just want to give you guys an update on that. And then I would like Melanie to give you guys an update on where we are currently at with the pledges and or donations for the pool.

So Thursday afternoon, we started a campaign for pledges and donations for the communities that want to support the pool. As of noon today, we have received pledges in the amount of $82,765, which would cover, it's based off of a year. So if somebody said that they would give a pledge for a monthly pledge, times that by 12 so we're looking to cover the year so we're towards our yearly goal of 375 601 we have pledges in the amount of 82 765 and we've received uh two thousand and five dollars in donations and howard and i are working together to assemble a list of businesses that we can contact both in state and outside of staten and other um supporters that might be interested in in participating in a pledge campaign

All right, I have a question, Melanie. I don't want to bust anyone's bubble, but what will that allow us to do when we get that $100,000?

So the $100,000 was the first goal that we had listed on the presentation, which is why we put that as the initial goal. And then the full goal is listed on the website as well. I don't have the information about what that $100,000 covers. It kind of, I think, depends on what council decides to do with the pool.

All right. Councilor, did you have a question?

I did, Julie, about the cemetery. So when we send out code enforcement letters or even, like, I've gotten a letter for my sprinkler backflow, and it says, if you don't do this, the city's going to do it at a cost to you. So I guess I don't understand why we aren't sending letters to to this property owner, like certified letters and telling them that we're going to clean it up. Like we don't, I mean, if it becomes a volunteer party or whatever, but like if you're telling me that I have to clean up my weeds and do my backflow, then so do they. And I don't understand why that's any different.

So we are sending letters. I'll I'm not sure that we sent the certified letter yet, but we are sending letters. The challenge is the cost. We're talking about parks and pools. We don't have the cost to go out there and clean up a party. We can consult with Ross and see what he thinks if we have the authority to coordinate a cleanup party in lieu of us doing something. I don't think that that's something we honestly I don't know that we really go and do that and then lien property. But if we did, the property lien is the way that we get the money back. And you can't really lien a cemetery property that has no tax. I mean, there's nothing to lien because they're not going to sell it. But we can ask Ross if he thinks that we have the authority to, for code enforcement purposes, go onto a property and clean it up with volunteers. I'm not sure. But we are sending letters.

julia i think i asked before but does the county tax assessor receive property tax for the cemetery i do not believe so but i i will double check interesting so what would be the trigger to pay property tax a building or is it just an exemption because it's a cemetery i believe it's exempt but i'm trying to figure out how that might help us find out the ownership

Oh, we know who owns it. We know who owns it. We've got a P.O. box. We know it's the two clubs. It's their volunteer base as well. And from what I heard today, neither one of them really wants it. They would love to get rid of it. But then that comes with another responsibility for somebody else.

Okay.

Wait, so it is the two clubs that own it, or they're responsible for maintenance of it?

My understanding is that the Lone Oak agreement is both the clubs. So when you look at the tax assessor's information, it is both. Lone Oak Cemetery, and there's a P.O. box. And, oh, yeah, so does it say that there's, yeah, there's a P.O. box. When you kind of look into it a little bit more, there's a contact person. Can you see if it says what the text? Okay, it is zero. So, but in talking with people, my understanding is that the makeup of that Lone Oak Cemetery organization is the Masons and the Odd Fellows, and they jointly own the property. So that And they jointly are responsible for maintaining. So I think that there's probably some agreement, something that we need to kind of dig into and understand. So I guess we're making progress in talking to people and finding more people to talk to. And they are meeting, the Odd Fellows and the Masons are meeting next week to discuss this. So hopefully we'll know a little bit more after that.

Thank you.

OK. Anything else? All right. Council opportunity for comment.

Mr. Mayor.

Yeah.

I had a couple of things from the last planning commission meeting. So there's a church at five 79 East Washington street that was residential low density and it's developed with the church Nazarene church. Uh, currently, uh, it's, So the zoning was changed on it to – oh, I have it. My note's terrible here.

Yeah.

But the recommendation was for residential low density for the church building because Charlene was putting a – dance studio in there. So the planning commission did recommend approval for that. I think, I don't know if Jennifer has any more on that, but the plans for a dance studio there. And the other thing that went before the planning board was Phillips Estates III development plan for 22 lot master plan. And there's open space designation. It's 7.11 acres. It's on Oriel Street. It's low density residential. And there's a 2.49 acres of open space in that 7.11 acres. And there was some clarifications on some of the requirements for that. So there's going to be another hearing to clarify the conditions on that. So those are the two things planning saw in the last meeting.

Mr. Mayor. Yeah, the only thing I'll update is I went to school board last meeting and was able to present some of the information as far as the annexations are concerned. The board members did have questions just as far as some of the constraints that we're under. And so I did my best to explain to them some of our power that's been diminished by the state government and explain that. And so obviously they were curious about that and incredulous. So I did my best to answer those questions. And that was the main thing that they questioned at all out of everything that we had to say.

Thank you.

Anybody else? Mr. Mayor.

Councilor Hayes.

To the Chamberlains and anybody, you know, concerned and wanted to know about the pool. I get approached a lot as to what happened last week and such. How did that go and everything else? And from my standpoint, I've just wanted to say I've been letting a lot of people know it's going to have to be financed differently than it probably has been. And I said what you're seeing on Facebook and such like that for donations to the city hall. Okay. So I was right on that one. Okay. That's where your pledges can go, where that can go. I said I'm hearing about other... happenings. Your party's the first time I've heard that, so now I'll spread that around, you know, and such like that.

And how, you know, other large, the tax deduction that you mentioned that can be used, you know, for I'm assuming much larger ones.

I'm not, I assume some would throw in a fiver and a In a fishbowl, you know, I don't know if they'll get a buck off or not on their taxes. But I'm assuming, you know, anything that's, you know, up there pretty good, you know, they can be able to put it on. And I'm letting people know that. So then that way they can handle it however they want with their own control and such. And I also expressed to them, please come to the council meetings and get more information and such. So that's my little report there. I'll let you all know. Go ahead. I'll take it. Go. Can't do that.

I wanted a clarification on the 80-some thousand that's been raised in pledges. Does that include the large donation? So that includes that.

Okay.

Did you, and you got a solid number of what it is?

The pledge that was made in regards to that donation was made saying at least 50,000. And so I put in $50,000. I want to plan on more. Until we make a decision, until council has made a decision, we are not going to go to the people who are pledging an estimate amount and look for a firm donation. We can't do that yet because we don't know what's happening.

We'll find out for you.

So there's been no communication is what you're saying between you and that large donor?

We'll find out.

Okay.

Okay. I've got to keep the public comments to public comments. Anything else, council? All right, Julie, I got a couple of questions. Fire hydrant curbside. Do we paint those yellow anymore? Or the fire department or anybody? Or is it just the fire hydrant itself?

I think it is... It varies by area. I think in downtown, we do paint the yellow. But my understanding is that in most places throughout town, we do not paint the yellow.

So I'll share with Lieutenant Meeks, you can do a drive-by. 3rd and Pine Street, please. Every single day, same car, right in front of the fire hydrant. Thank you.

And I think the reason is the law is the law. You're not supposed to be parking within a certain distance.

That's why I asked the question. The fire hydrant is clearly yellow. The curb's not, but I can see it. I can't even tell you the car, but I'll let you do your job. Question about open space on these site plans. When we designate open space, the developer of that project is going to, in turn, contribute or donate that land to the city as a park? Is that correct? For example, I think it's called Wildlife Meadows, right? There's a little bench and a little turnout, for lack of a better word. I think it's actually the bioswale, but is that considered a park?

So there's a certain amount of open space that's required and are they, initially there was a question of whether they could use the drainage swale as part of their open space and it was determined, meaning our attorney talked to their attorney and there isn't, definition that says that they can't use open space that's a drainage area i think a decision still hasn't been made of whether they're going to give it to the city but the um The agreement was that they would give it to the city because it is a drainage area, and I think this is where Public Works wants to own the drainage areas so that they know it's maintained because of the issues with Sylvan Springs. So that is why it was being discussed that we, meaning the city, would take that drainage area But it doesn't say in the code whether the city has to take it or should take it or it should be a homeowners association. But I think the decision was made in public works that it be owned by the city because of those issues of drainage. So I'll leave it at that.

Mm-hmm.

Okay, what I'm getting at is I don't want to take on any due responsibility considering our current situation. So we can bring that back at some point. I think that I've been asked that question by several folks and I'm like, I don't know how to answer that. So that'd be a great question to answer.

Go ahead, Councilor Ortt. Jennifer, you said that there isn't a definition on what the open space is, but isn't there an intention of what the open space is? Isn't the open space to be able to use it? And if it's a swale, how is that usable?

So you're right that a lot of communities will define that open space is not considered a drainage swale, but we don't have that in our definition. But open space can be more than just using the open space. It can be

nature preservation so in this case they're they're saying it's for nature gotcha okay okay um the current park on kindle way that's we're calling it a park right what is that called again mill creek park mill creek park is it designated a park currently yes So people can go there right now and utilize it as a park.

I believe so.

And would you consider it to be more, I'm thinking of the area specifically designed for water and for wastewater, not wastewater, but runoff.

The water quality swales.

The two basins, for lack of a better word.

Yeah, that is not part of Mill Creek Park. That's separate. Right. But what's your question?

My question is, who's maintaining that right now?

The city is.

And where is that? What funding is used to maintain that?

Stormwater.

Is what?

Stormwater.

So it's not coming out of the parks? That's correct. Okay. Okay. I'll hold my other one for later. So anything else, council?

Yes, Mr. Mayor.

Go ahead, councilor.

Can we get, it does not to me now, but can we get an update on, I've been hearing some rumblings about the,

Mill Creek Park.

Can we get an update on what's going on there? If not today, then...

Yes. There's some meetings happening this week, and so if we can get back to you either at the next meeting or maybe do a work session on several... There is a request to do a work session on parks, or Mill Creek Park anyways. So, yes, we can get you an update.

Thank you.

Anybody else?