City Council - Regular Meeting

Evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining us tonight. Um, this is a regular meeting of the city council of Waverly. It is Monday, February 2nd. It is 700 p.m. and we are called to order. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. 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. Do I have a motion to approve the agenda? I move to approve the agenda as presented. Second.

Any discussion? Who second? Well, thank you. All in favor say I. I. Opposed. Okay. Do I have an a motion to approve the minutes? I'll move approval of the January 19th, 2026 regular meeting minutes, the January 24th, 2026 budget work session minutes, and the January 26th, 2026 study session minutes. Second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. Opposed. Okay. And we have a guest council person with us, a new one for this month. Council person Rothy, would you like to introduce your guest?

Sure. I got to know Teresa through um being the council leazison on to Heritage Day's uh committee and she is uh the co-chairman and one of their uh hardest working volunteers. So, she'd never done this before. So, I thought it would be great experience for her. Awesome. Well, welcome. I'm glad you're here. Welcome. Thank you for the kind words and thank you.

Okay. This is the date, time, and place for a public hearing on resolution 26-10, a resolution approving and authorizing execution of a development agreement by and between the city of Waverly and LMI US DBA Revolution Concrete Mixers. The mayor and city council will entertain any comments. After all comments, the hearing will be declared closed and the following action will be considered. Have you received any written or oral comments?

I have not, your honor. Are there any public comments? I see none. So, the public hearing is now closed. Council, can I have a motion? I move approval of resolution 26-10, a resolution approving and authorizing execution of a development agreement by and between the city of Waverly and LMI US DBA Revolution concrete mixers. Second. Connie, would you like to come up and give some information, please?

Good evening. I'm Connie Tolen, planning and development specialist, City of Waverly. I'll begin by walking through the key elements of the development agreement. After that, I would like to invite two representatives of the project uh to the podium to introduce themselves and share more information about the company and the project. The development agreement before you supports a proposal by Revolution Concrete Mixers to open and operate a manufacturing and assembly facility at 1021 12th Street Southeast in Waverly. This project represents an estimated capital investment of approximately $18 million and is expected to create approximately 275 new full-time equivalent jobs, offering competitive wages and benefits. The development property is located within the Waverly Unified Urban Renewal District and was added to the city's TIP district ordinance in 2016. Under the terms of the agreement, the company is committing to several key performance benchmarks, including acquiring the development property, completing the minimum improvements outlined in the agreement, entering into a minimum assessment agreement with the county, establishing a minimum assessed value of at least $6.4 $4 million as of January 1st, 2027, commencing operations at the facility by September 30th, 2026, and maintaining a monthly average of at least 250 full-time equivalent jobs by December 31st of 2030. In consideration of these commitments, the city of Waverly agrees to provide economic development grants in the form of taps increment financing or TIFF rebates. Specifically, the city proposes to make up to six consecutive annual payments to the developer. Each annual payment would be equal to

the lesser of $60,000 or 100% of the tax increment generated by the development property. The cumulative total of all grant payments would not exceed $360,000 and the first grant payment would be made on June 1st, 2029. I do want to emphasize that these are TIFF rebates, meaning that any taxes rebated are limited to the new tax increment that's generated by the project. So, those are the key elements of the agreement. Um, with that, I would like to invite Parker Kriswell of Genovas to the podium to speak in more detail about the project, followed by Brian Datima, executive vice president at Revolution Concrete Mixers. Thank you. Thank you, honey.

Good evening again. Uh it's good to see everyone. It's only been a few short weeks, but um we're here back at it. Um Connie touched on a lot of the highlights, and so I think the only piece of this that I really want to reiterate again is why this project was uh why Waverly was chosen for this project. Um, you know, the biggest driver of that being the strong labor force that Waverly has that possesses a key number of skill sets that are easily transferable uh to help support quick ramp up to operations for Revolution here in Waverly. um you know coupled coupling that with the level of support we received from not only local officials and state officials but also just the community as a whole um definitely helpful in making sure that this project is a win for all parties involved. So um with that um I'll introduce kind of the what I consider the keynote speaker here uh from our end um Brian um with the leadership team at Revolution. uh he'll say a few things and then again happy to answer any questions that the council may have.

Thank you.

Good evening. Um [clears throat] so I'm Brian Datima. I'm executive vice president of the Revolution Concrete Mixers and Blended Machinery, our other Canadian brand. Um thanks for having me here tonight. Um, I I will say I on behalf of Bob Msharp, the president, um, he couldn't make it because he's got some family with some health issues that he had to stay back home. So, he sends his apologies. Um, but, uh, anyways, I, you know, we're really excited about this. I appreciate you guys having us here and, you know, considering this economic development program with us. you know, we're excited about um Waverly and and coming to the town and bringing a bunch of uh you know, manufacturing jobs. What we're looking for is to bring some fabrication jobs, welding, assembly, um those types of folks again at a at a at a good wage. You know, we're averaging $25 an hour and then some management to those folks as well. Again, kind of averaging that $42 an hour. Um, and with the the local and and state help, you know, we're looking to do a lot of things with that. You know, part of that is training the workforce. So, you know, we do a lot of training on how to do hydraulics or the assembly um and safety um most importantly and how we we go about doing those things with with our folks. but then also use some of that money to help get that job creation here in the area um to buy equipment so that we have a good long-term sustained um growth and and you know a good long-term business here in in Waverly. So um you know lots of different things that we've got there um when it comes to Waverly. So I I grew up in a small town farming town in in Michigan. Um out of school my first job was in Pella Iowa. So, not too far away from here, small company called Verier Manufacturing. You guys may or may not

have heard of that, right? Um, and then I moved up to uh Minnesota, so Rochester, another generally farming area. Um, I found personally that a lot of great workers are in towns like Waverly. And uh, you know, so it was an easy choice to say that this is this is a good place. Plus, obviously, there was a a good building. um you know, needs a little TLC, but uh you know, we're here to to make sure that we give that TLC to the building and and uh start making some great concrete mixers made in the state of Iowa out of that facility. So, um again, thank you for having me here. Thank you for the consideration for us and and this project to work together with you guys in the state of Iowa. And uh I'm also happy to answer any questions that you might have for me about the project and what we're looking to do. I'll just say we're we're glad you chose us. I mean, this is really exciting and thanks for coming down. You're going to get to know Highway 63 pretty intimately.

I I've been down that road a few times already and and it's uh it's a fairly easy drive. Even today when it was a bit snowy, took me a little bit longer, but not uh not a bad drive at all. So, can you tell us a little bit about your timeline? I heard Connie say like end of this year. I mean, what are you envisioning for rehabbing the building and bringing in people to train workers, etc. Seems like we're really looking to get employees in as soon as as reasonably um fast as we can. Um, you know, we've got some some good goals for the year that we want to do from a manufacturing standpoint. So, I think we'll we'll blow the September thing out of the water.

Um, so, you know, maybe maybe it'll be March and April that we really get things kicked off. So, um, as far as, you know, doing reurb, um, there's stuff that can happen inside obviously right away. Um, some of the outside stuff, it's going to have to be a little bit till we get a little bit warmer. Um, but again, we're going to try to step through this and make sure that we're, you know, for us, the main thing is to focus the effort and and money on the things that'll start getting production and getting people hired and all those things. You know, making the building look a little bit prettier. It's going to be a little bit farther down the road. Um, but yeah, and get equipment in so we can start making concrete mixers. Great. Thank you. Welcome to town. We're glad to have you. Yeah. Thanks. How many employees do you have in Rochester?

So, we have like 25, but it's it's mostly engineering. We got a little bit of finance, marketing. Will some of those jobs transfer down here?

Some may. Um, you know, we we are still going to have the Rochester office. Um, mostly because we had the engineers. So I I think historically this build this business started in Dodge Center, Minnesota. So about 20 minutes west of Rochester. Um when Ashka shut the build business off because they were working on selling it. Um we took the office employees because those were easily transferable to to Rochester. Um obviously production they didn't want to move to Canada. Um and again I know from Bob's perspective and my own you know we never wanted to leave the US and uh so kind of coming back and some of those employees that are there in Rochester will then also make that drive down 63 to come help support us. So

okay any other discussion or questions? Well thank you. We are thrilled that you are here. So I'm thrilled to be here. Thank you. Thanks. Okay. That was moved and seconded. So this is a roll call [clears throat] vote. Carla. Wolf? Yes. Rothy? Yes. Mackey? Yes. Kangas? Sorry, keep going. Yes. [clears throat] Armen, yes.

Okay, moving on. This is the date, time, and place for public hearing on the second reading of ordinance 1175, an ordinance amending chapter 102 of the Waverly Municipal Code providing the amendments to the flood plane regulations. The mayor and city council will entertain any comments. After all comments, the hearing will be declared closed and the following action will be considered. Have you received any original oral comments, Carlo? I have not, your honor. Are there any public comments? I see none. So, the hearing is now closed. Council, may I have a motion?

I move to approve the second reading of ordinance 11 175, an ordinance amending chapter 102 of the Waverly Municipal Code providing for amendments to the flood plane regulations. Second. Any discussion? [clears throat] Roll call vote, please. Rafie, yes. Excuse me. Mackey, yes. Jones, yes. Armen, yes. Wolf,

yes. Excuse me. Okay, this is the time for public comments on items not on the agenda. Please limit your comments to five minutes unless additional time is granted by the presiding officer. All remarks shall be addressed to the council as a whole and not to any individual member. Does anybody have any comments? I see none. So, moving on. Council, you have received the consent calendar. The following items will be acted upon by a voice vote on a single motion without a separate discussion unless someone from the council or public [clears throat] requests that a specific item be considered separately. Do I have a motion? I'd move approval of the consent calendar as presented.

Second. Any discussion? This is a voice vote. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? That passed. Okay. On to regular business. So there is a review of fiscal year 2025, the city of Waverly audit by Clifton Larson Allen CPAs. Do we have a representative to present? Go ahead to the podium please and say your name. Good evening everybody. My name is Adam Pulley. Welcome.

Good to go. Perfect. All right. Well, thank you all for having me. Um I am the principal from CLA in charge of uh June 30th 2025 audit for the city. This was our first year um doing the the audit. So our first time presenting to you all. I will tell you that I tend to being the auditors we will be focused on the audit results and not so much the financial or the accounting piece of it and really just the auditing piece. Um I had put a few slides together and not sure if you have them or not. That's okay. If you don't have it in front of you, it's quite all right. Um, I really am going to very loosely be referring to it anyhow. It's probably more notes for me than anything else. So, um, at the end of the day, um, and I mentioned, let me first mention that while I'm going to be focused on the audit results, if you do want to get a good synopsis of the financial piece or the accounting piece during the year, that big financial statement packet, um, towards the beginning, there is a section called the management's discussion and analysis. that's a palatable, digestible, eight to 10 pages, something like that, that management puts together that um really has summarized information that kind of helps um really put together the fiscal year 25. So, I wanted to put that out there. As it relates to the audit though, um at the end of the day, when it was all said and done, we did issue what's known as an unmodified opinion across all the opinion units. That's a clean audit opinion. That's the that's the opinion that you want as a city. Now, we did note within our audit opinion, there were a few um audit adjustments that we had, some of which actually impacted the previous fiscal year. So, I'll touch on those briefly. And we did have a couple findings that I wanted to communicate to you all on the front end here. Before I get into those details, I did want to mention that the nature of these um I'm going to call them prior period adjustments and the findings they are such that um I would suggest that the financial information

that you've been getting throughout the year is unaffected by these. So, the the information that you've been going off of to make decisions, things of that nature. While there are things that I that [snorts] we noted during the audit that are sort of accounting technicalities to get the city's financial statements in accordance with um accounting principles, it would not impact presumably the financial information that you're likely getting throughout the year. So, I put that put that context there. So, um I mentioned that there were a few prior period adjustments, meaning that when we were doing our audit of fiscal year 2025, um it surfaced that it appeared that the some of the information from FY24 should have been reported differently. So, um there's three of those items, one of which was the other postemployment benefits. This would be the retiree health insurance um benefits um um that employees can can generate um and there's a liability that gets shown on the city's financial statements. In the past, this had all been kind of put in one bucket, a governmental activities bucket. Trying not to get too technical here. So to simplify it really that there it was determined that some of the other funds, water fund, sewer fund, um where there are employees that work in those funds really those funds should have also had an allocation of that liability. They had been reporting zero in in the past. So it was determined that the allocation would be changed going forward so that that liability was spread across the funds where the employees are actually um their salaries are recorded and it's a little more consistent. So that was one thing that was changed and we'll now be looking that way going forward. Um second one probably a little simpler to explain um capital assets um the accumulated depreciation schedules that we had gotten and had been maintained from previous years for whatever reason

at some point there was some calculations that were off in the past I you know could have been 5 years ago 10 years ago 15 years ago we we noticed it we're not quite sure what the calcul why that occurred but nevertheless um we noticed that really the city's capital asset should have been roughly $2 million higher in value than what it had been carrying forward. So, got that corrected. Now, it's there. It's good going forward. Last one as it relates to prior period adjustments. Um, it was noted that there were two funds that really are there to serve an [clears throat] enterprise fund. Again, trying not to get technical. So, for example, um there was a water projects fund that had been reported separately. really should be reported within the water fund itself because of the nature of that fund. Um so again, this is more of a technical accounting reporting thing than anything else. So we got that corrected, tred up so that it's more in line with what we'd expect to see um with accounting standards going forward. So those were the three prior period adjustments I went through kind of quick before I go into the findings. Is that any any questions? I go too fast there. Good. Okay. So two findings. Um we did have one finding which I would suggest was really kind of anticipated. Um we by virtue there was a finding on the fact that we as the auditors um assisted the city in putting together the that financial packet and proposing some of these audit adjustments. So that's in accordance with accounting standards. Because we are the external auditors, we cannot be considered part of the city's internal control structure. So by virtue of that we have to note that as a finding. It's actually a very common finding especially in government. So again this was some that was kind of known going into the audit but that's what that finding is for. Um the other one um was um there was an area of lack of segregation of duties. um you know

the the city obviously has a certain limited number of resources here and there and so we when we are doing our audit we're paying attention to where's the risk where are their controls in place second set of eyes that sort of thing during our audit we noted um that there was not an independent review of bank reconciliations being done monthly now when we tested the bank reconciliations we didn't come across any issues it's just the mere fact that we wanted to point out hey it appears that there's you know these are being prepared by one individual realist istically to have a good control in place have a second set of eyes we'd recommend having an independent review of somebody else signing off in those monthly. So that was the nature of that finding any question that those are the two findings that we had. Any questions on those?

I have a question on the second one. So with a city that has a relatively small staff, how do you do that practically? Well, there are some cities that if if it's determined that there's just not enough staff to take care of. There are some municipalities or governments that actually board members get involved um and they might look at those monthly. So we do see that as long as you know we don't necessarily dictate what's the best operationally but you know we are just looking for those second set of eyes because that's pointing out to you all where's the risk what control should you put in place just to try to mitigate any any risk.

So it doesn't have to be somebody with financial training per se. Well, I I mean I ideally it's somebody that could be trained and knows what they're what they're looking at. Um I think that would be important certainly in this in this particular case with bank reconciliations. Okay. Thanks. Mhm.

Okay. The last thing really that I wanted to go over because that's all I had for the big financial statement packet. We also issue a smaller letter. It's called the the governance communication. And really what that is for the most part is our opportunity to express to you all if there were any um significant disagreements, significant uh delays, problems, things of that nature. Really, I already talked about some of the items that we had put in there as it relates to prior period adjustments. So most of it beyond that is really sort of boilerplate language, but that's what that communication is. There was nothing else reportable that I haven't already mentioned. Um that's what we had issued that I really didn't have anything else to to present. Um I certainly wanted to take the time to thank Valerie, the rest of the finance staff, other members of management, James. Um being a first year audit, you know, we certainly asked questions that probably previous auditors already knew or we asked questions that were just different. And um you know, the the group at the city, I will say, was very not only patient with us, but certainly did not put our questions or put any of our team on the back burner. and they were very um forthright, forthcoming, and really wanted to do their best to help um get the communication and have this collaborative process go as as smoothly as possible. So, very much thank them for that.

Any other discussion? You know, I'll just say that I I think it is a [clears throat] great summary of the city's financial position, that first section, relatively easy to read, and I would encourage people who have questions about the city finance to look at it because it's very informative. Excuse me. Any other any other discussion?

I'll just add that it was a challenge. I think I would agree. It's it's we're a little later than we normally are to because we had so much to try and get through. Had to restate things that we looked at. Anytime you have a new audit, uh Williams and company have been with us for probably 20 plus years. So the very new audit they would have had was 20 years ago. They would have went through the same thing we went through this year. identifying any internal controls, looking at any policy and procedural issues. And so it was a lot more work than we probably anticipated. We haven't been through a new audit. Like I said, any of us probably here actually. So, um, was glad to get it done. I'm not going to lie. Uh, it was a lot, but our goal is that we will meet again in a few months to try and get a better understanding. Uh, Williams and company, as great as they were, did a lot of stuff for us that we needed to do ourselves to get away from you basically auditing yourself. And that was one of our biggest kicks we're going to look at and try and get figured out and we will find procedurally some way to get the other finding off to. Um, but no, I just appreciate these guys coming in. They were very patient with us and there's a lot of stuff we don't know. I mean, we're not CPAs. I went that different route to finance for a reason. That is not my cup of tea. [laughter] So, I was glad to get it done, but I appreciate Adam and his crew coming in. Uh, most of this was done online. There was very little in person at all hardly. And that says a lot about what's accomplished. looking at 150 page document that was done

over how many months. So I appreciate what these guys did too. Well and that's that's that was part of our discussion when we decided to go with a new firm and you know is to get a fresh look and we got that right. Thank you. Thank you all. Have a good evening. Thank you. Okay. Moving on. This brings us to resolution 26-11. on a resolution creating parcels VV, WW, XXX, Y, ZZ, AB, A, and A D in block 28, Prince Meyers Edition, Waverly, Iowa. Do I have a motion?

I'll move approval of resolution 26-11, a resolution creating parcels VB, WW, XX, Y, ZZ, AB, AC, and AD in block 28, Cret's edition, Waverly, Iowa. Second. Is there any discussion? This is a continuation of what we've been doing meeting after meeting and we're close. There shouldn't be too many more of these. Uh for those watching, so this was done in the ' 50s. It was never formally actually finished the documentation, etc. This will finish it. So, um hopefully we're getting close. Okay. Any discussion? Roll call vote, please. Car Mackie. Yes. Jones. Yes. Harmon.

Yes. Wolf. Yes. Robbie. Yes. Moving on to resolution 26-12. [clears throat] A resolution approving a quote from Electric Pump of De Mo, Iowa for the purchase of a new irrigation pump at the Gulf Course. Do I have a motion? I move approval of resolution 26-12, a resolution approving a quote from Electric Pump of De Moine, Iowa for the purchase of a new irrigation pump at the golf course for a cost of $9,348. Second. Any discussion? Roll call, please. Carla Mackey, yes. Jones, yes. Carmen, yes. Wolf, yes.

Rocky, yes. That brings us to resolution 26-13, resolution approving the removal of a cottonwood tree at the north end of Coleman Park by ArborP Pro Tree Services [clears throat] LLC of Fort Dodge, Iowa. Do I have a motion? [snorts] I move to approve resolution 26-13, a resolution approving the removal of a cottonwood tree at the north end of Coleman Park by Arbor Tro Arbor Pro Tree Services LLC of Fort Dodge, Iowa for a cost of $4,250. Second. Second. Any discussion?

I feel like I should send Paul Chavell a sympathy card for this because I bet this is painful for him. It's a big tree. It's a big tree. Very difficult for him to say this one needs to Yeah. Yeah. It was looking pretty rotten down at the where the second or the first part had been taken out. It's really gone down. Yep. Yep. We've had our eye on it for coll. Yeah. Any other discussion? Okay. Roll call vote, please. Kangas, sorry. Jones, yes. Harmon, yes. Wolf, yes. Rocky, yes. Mackey, yes.

That takes us to resolution 26-14, a resolution approving a quote from Steggy Construction, Inc. of Waverly, Iowa for the repair of the Shades of Rhythm Amphitheater, and authorize the mayor to sign the quote. Do I have a motion? I move to approve resolution 2614, a resolution approving a quote from State Construction, Inc. of Waverly, Iowa for the repair of the Shades Rhythm Amphitheater and to authorize the mayor to sign the quote of $79,640 for its insurance will cover $78,640 and the city will pay the $1,000 deductible. Second. Any discussion? Roll call vote, please. Jones, yes. Harmon, yes. Wolf, yes. Rathy, yes.

Matthew, yes. That brings us to resolution 26-15, a resolution approving change order number four of the Waverly Aquatic Center from Woodruff Construction of Fort Dodge, Iowa. Do I have a motion? Move to approve resolution 26-15, a resolution approving change order number four for the Waverly Aquatic Center for Woodruff Construction of Fort Dodge, Iowa for the increased amount of $15,43047. Do I have a second? Second. Any discussion? Roll call vote, please. Herman, yes. Wolf, yes. Roie, yes. Matthew, yes.

Jones, yes. Okay, council, you have received the report from the Waverly Municipal Housing Commission. Do you have any discussion? Okay, that brings us to staff updates. Mr. Your honor, we have nothing tonight. Ma'am, nothing. Right. Okay. That brings us to city council comments. Sorry. Excuse me. Council person Rafie. Nothing from me. Thanks. [clears throat] Nothing from me. Nothing for you. Nothing tonight. Council person Becky.

Bears with Bard afterwards. And I found out that people indeed do watch us after going to my mechanic and he was saying I watch religiously every Monday night. And there was actually a person waiting there that had watched our meeting on his phone and said, "Come and talk to me about that snow." And it was he was honestly I never thought about all this stuff. So yeah, please come and talk. [snorts] Council person Wolf

um went to a housing summit in Calburn on Thursday where the mayor was also there. Um, and we'll be going to another one on Thursday in Sierra Falls. Just trying to learn more about what housing looks like in the area and how to improve things in Waverly. Guest council person, do you have any comments tonight? The only thing I will do is um, due to my invitation tonight, I engaged my 17-year-old daughter to listen and um, she is confirmed by a text that she's listening. So, we're trying to incorporate the the younger generation to get more involved in the community. Do you have anything embarrassing you want to share about

and say she probably embarrassing enough that she [laughter] my mom mentioned me too.

Um, you know, I had something I was going to say, but honestly, I'm just glad January and all 187 days of it are over. I'm glad that Groundhog Sai has shadow. So, if anybody has a good recipe for groundhog stew, I'm game. Um, and I appreciate that our council people go above and beyond to meet people where they're at, to have conversations, to really get out there in the community, to go the extra mile and go to housing summits and do some of the extra work that you're doing. So, thank you to our 104 council. At this point, we have an executive session. We're going to Oh my gosh. We are going into executive session. So to discuss strategy with council in matters that are presently in litigation or where litigation is imminent where its disclosure would be likely to prejudice or disadvantage the position of the governmental body in that litigation as provided by section 21.51c [clears throat] of the code of Iowa. Do I have a motion? I move that we enter into executive session to discuss strategy with council in matters that are presently in litigation or where litigation is imminent where its disclosure would be likely to prejudice or disadvantage the position of the governmental body in that litigation as provided by section 21.5 subset 1 C of the code of Iowa

second roll call vote please Wolf yes Rafie yes yes Jones yes Herman. Yes. [clears throat] [snorts] So everybody clear out this get out of here. [snorts]