City Council - Regular Meeting

will fly Let me do the inside passage down that west in Vancouver. Not quite there yet. Well, that's all right. You probably be able to spend more time and see more things.

Sure. Okay. So, here we go. Yes, sir. We're going to call city council regular business meeting to order. This is Thursday, October 16th, 2025. It is 6 pm. Palin, would you call? Council member Baker. Council member Brown here. Council member Cool here. Council member Livingston here. Council member Mine here. Mayor Phillips, I'm here. We do have a quorum, so we'll move on. Uh item number two is the pledge of allegiance. Would you please rise and say the pledge of allegiance with me?

I pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with justice for all. Okay. Item number three is approval of the agenda. Would anybody like to move any of the consent agenda items to the regular agenda? Hearing none. Can I get a motion to approve the agenda? Motion. Second. Okay. Motion by Cool. Second by Ni. All those in say I. I. All post same.

All right. Motion carries. Item number four is welcome guest and public comment. Thank you for being at the meeting tonight. We appreciate you being here and appreciate uh your participation in your local government. Uh at this point in time, we'd open up the day for any uh comments for not non-aggenda item that you want to address council with. Uh realize we can't take action on those tonight because uh they're not on the agenda. That would be a violation of the open meetings law if we took action. Uh we'll give you three minute time limit. Also, if you have uh any comments on any item in the consent agenda item, now would be the time. Anybody? Any takers? Seeing none, we'll move on to item number five, consent agenda. Can I get a motion?

Motion. Second. Motion by Brown, second by Cool. Kalin, would you please call the role? Council member Brown, yes. Cool. Yes. Livingston, yes. Mine, yes. All right, that motion carries. Item number six is old and new business for consideration, discussion, and possible action. Uh, item A is a resolution approving the IRS arbitrage rebate earnings payment related to the city's 2021A general obligation bonds. I'm just going to turn this one over to Jean for an explanation.

Sure. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, we um borrow money and then obviously we put it in the bank until we spend it and we earn a little bit of interest on that. Um the IRS looks at that um to make sure we're not earning too much money. We're able to earn some money, but we can't earn more than um we're allowed. So they look at the bond yield rate at the time that we um issued the debt and that was 1.57% um for these 2021A bonds. And then it looks at our interest earnings over the life of the time that we have that money in the bank. Sometimes it can take two to three years to complete a project from start to finish. It just so happens um in 20 we borrowed this money in December of 2021 and then in 22 and 23 the market went crazy. Interest went up. Um to give you an example, May of 22, our money market rate was 75% earning interest. In September of that same year was 2.37 and then 14 months later it was 3.84%. So we earned a good deal of of interest. Um so we have to pay a little bit of it back. 15,000 um it looks like we earned about $123,000 overall in the money, but we have to pay 15,000 back because it wasn't allowed. The hard thing for me to grasp with this whole process because this is new. Um it's it's for larger issues when we we've started doing that in the last 5 years is that we actually pay interest every year on this debt and they don't take that into account at all. So our annual debt on this is around 125,000 a year. Um they just uh simply ignore that. So we're not making any money. Um, but we did get to earn a little interest and so it's not a bad

thing that we have to pay it back and it's not a huge amount. Um, but they did look at a couple other of uh, bonds and we're okay there. Uh, we'll be looking at the next round which is 2022 and we did put the uh, put those in some T- bonds. So there could potentially be some payback there as well. But that's that in a nutshell. All right. Thank you. Any discussion? Question from council. When you say pay it back, it goes into the IRS then or Yes. IRS payment due October 30th. It's not really paying it back. It's paying it to the IRS for some reason. Excess earnings. Refund of excess earnings. Yeah.

Sounds kind of hokey to me, but yeah, it's a way for the IRS to make money. All right. Any other questions, comments from council or public comment? I get a motion to approve the resolution as presented. Motion second. Motion by Cool, seconded by Micki. Any further discussion? Hearing none. Kayla, would you call a roll? Council member Brown, yes. Cool. Yes. Livingston, yes. Yes.

All right, that motion carries. Item 6B is a uh resolution ordering construction of certain public improvements uh legacy area street rehabilitation project. It's approving preliminary plans and fixing a date for hearing there on and taking a bids therefore. So Colonial Parkway and the Circle Legacy Circle need some rehabilitation work done. Uh this is also being this is being done to improve the condition of the streets and also to wreck some of the pedestrian ramps in the area. I'll let you take it from here.

Thank you, mayor. Summarized it well. The only other additional work being done will be pavement striping of Colonial Parkway delineate delineating that in the two lanes each direction will take bids this fall where it will occur in the spring. Okay, more questions. Council have comments or any public comment hearing. None. Can I get a motion to approve the resolution as presented? Motion. Second. Motion by Brown, seconded by Miki. Any further discussion? Hearing none. Kaylin, would you please call the role? Council member Cool. Yes. Livingston?

Yes. Yes. Brown. Yes.

All right, that motion carries. Item 6 C is resolution approving private storm water improvements policies. So, we have several private storm water facilities throughout Norwa. This could be like a drainage way, a detention pond, or even a small creek. In some cases, the city has found value in supporting private storm water improvements. Yet, we've not had a formal mechanism to financially support those types of projects. Uh so this policy will help provide guidance for those types of requests. Uh I want to point out that a big emphasis within this policy is financial participation by the private parties. Uh past direction by council has been that we can help but only if the private interest takes the lead uh through action and funding. Uh in other words, we don't want the city to be the primary source of the funds. So lish state here.

I'll do that. Yeah. Um, yep. So, uh, this came out of, uh, we've got some other programs for storm water assistance, um, that are just homeowner focused, rain barrels, small grant programs. Um, but we did occasionally have some times where property owners would ask for assistance with a bigger project that was bigger in scope than just something happening on their property. We didn't have a great mechanism, as the mayor uh, alluded to. So, what this essentially does is it gives us a policy on how we'll handle each one of those. Um it does require uh property owner participation. Essentially the city just becomes one equal participant in that funding. So depending on how many people there are, the city just takes an equal share of that. Um we did cap it at $20,000 maximum for a single project. Um but did give a little bit of flexibility. Obviously this is a policy. So you as a council, if you feel like through our budgeting process you want to participate more, um that would be something you could consider. But just as staff works on it and communicates with the public, we're generally going to try to stay around $20,000. Um, and the the way the whole project process would work is they would apply for it. We put it together um at it essentially as a CIP project for the city to consider at time of CIP development. You could decide to fund it and then participate at a year in the future. Um, or you could decide not to.

Okay. questions, discussion from councelor. Is there an x number of requests in general that come in for this sort of stuff? Leave the loop. Yeah. Maybe one every couple years. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Just wanted to get a feel. And and those requests are such that we feel there's been times where we're like, oh, we would like to participate. Yeah. I think, you know, in general, making sure that storm water situations work well, whether they're public facilities or private, you know, is a general overall benefit to the community and making sure things work well. So,

some of the claims that have come up, not claims, I don't know the best way to put it, but um there's water generated on city streets. Yeah. And sometimes there are thought if there's enough water that comes from city streets that flows through a private drainage way. Yeah. Is there a responsibility of the city to participate? At least this gives you a mechanism even though it's private. If you chose to assist, you could. Yeah. And sometimes it could affect whole neighborhoods or several property owners, you know, across that might be a consideration. I like this because it's simple and it kind of acts like well that the rehabilitation program we got a little bit for the houses and stuff, right?

Yeah. But there won't be a separate board for this. This will just come to us on the CIP. Yeah. And we decide at that time if we're in We felt like that was going to be the just easiest way to not create more work for us as staff, not create a whole separate review committee or anything. Just you want to be the chairman of a review committee again? I'm good. I like it. I think it's pretty good. Anything else for public comment? Hearing none. Can I get a motion to approve the resolution is presented?

Uh, I got a motion by Brown and Cool. Anybody want a second? We'll just say a second by Brown or Cool. Okay, you can make mine to a second. Pretty quiet down there. I don't always hear yours. Any further discussion? Hearing none. Kaylin, would you call roll? Council member Livingston? Yes. Yes. Brown? Yes. Cool.

Yes. All right, motion carries. Item 6D is a resolution to fix a date for a public hearing on proposal to enter into a water revenue loan and dispersement agreement and to borrow money there under and a principal amount not to exceed $6 million. So, it will cost approximately $6 million for our buyin to Central Iowa Waterworks. Uh, we need to set a date for the public hearing on borrowing the money for the buyin. And this item probably should have been on the consent agenda. So I would entertain a motion to approve the resolution. Motion second. Okay. Motion by Cool. Seconded by Miy Kalin. Would you call a roll? Council member Mine? Yes. Brown? Yes. Yes. Livingston?

Yes.

All right. That motion carries. Item 6E. First reading of an ordinance amending chapter 92 water rates and chapter 177 rates and fees of the Norach Municipal Code providing for amended secondary or irrigation water rates. So earlier in the year council decided to establish a tiered rate structure for irrigation water rates. There were some unintended consequences to that action. So staff is suggesting uh to move to a flat rate for irrigation water meters. Uh we are also starting to see attention drawn to irrigation across the metro as cities are seeing the cost of adding capacity through central Iowa waterworks which is our regional water authority. So Jean take it away.

Um I'll just come up the presentation. Jean, if I'm not keeping up with you on this, just let me know.

Okay. You just go to that first slide if you want to. Um I don't want to repeat what the mayor said. Uh he mentioned that we went to that three tier schedule. We are requesting uh staff that is that we change this to a flat 1.5 rate. Um we have decided that the tier levels gallons were probably too low. um did a little bit of research and um it looks like you know it's based on frequency, duration, meter size, lawn size and weather. So those are all just kind of factors. Also HOAs kind of came into play and we'll talk about that in a minute.

Um yeah, they just just doing in general research, you know, if you irrigate one time a week, you know, it's anywhere up to 5,000. twice a week can be 17,000. Three times a week can be 12 to 15,000 and daily can get you up to 38,000. So they're trying to be a little more reasonable as far as maybe what what we would charge in that regard. And again, irrigation, we're not we're not trying to increase revenues and make money. We're just really trying to recover our costs as much as possible, as much as reasonably possible. So that's part of this. So I'm going to talk about uh as the mayor mentioned, the uh metro cities are going to be talking about this a lot. Um they're in the same boat we are. Um irrigation is is a big big expenditure, but I just kind of thought we'd give you um a little bit of uh comparisons. There's no consistency across the board um at this time, but we just thought we'd show you. Clyde um has a scale and what's that up to 10,000 10 to 30,000 and above 30,000 so a quite a bit higher than what we had and they're at 15% higher for those first two ranges and 33% higher for their rates. Ames um they do theirs in cubic feet. I tried to break that down to convert it. They do 15,000 22,000 and 37,000 gallons. Um and they they get pretty high. They do 44% at that first range, 1.65 times and then three times when they get to that high rate. So they really they take it serious. Uh Poke City is 70% higher. They really came out of the gate um hard there. Johnston and West De Moine are both about 25% higher than their base rate. That's just on a per thousand. They don't have a tiered.

Johnston, did I say John? No. Urbanddale is 15% and then of course you know what we are we are uh 125 1.5 and two times at this point I will say um under the old well I should say under the current under the current rate at 6,000 gallons someone would be charged with irrigation $77.91 and that would be the per thousand rate plus uh the availability ility fee of 1125 and that's on a 1 in meter. Our our meters are different based on size but most irrigation meters are 1 in. Um we do have 1268 total meters. Um so the old meter or the current meter I got to quit saying that current meter 77.91. If we did the one point 1 1.5 it would be 9117. So a difference of $1326. on the 9,000 the difference um would be 127 to

the one are you talking about I'm talking about the 9,000 for some reason I didn't write down the new rate and then I but I did for the 24 and 36 six. That's embarrassing. For for 9,000 right now, it's 12738. I think I figured it on my computer, but I forgot to write it down. I'll come back to that. For how many total gall for the for0032 + 1125? If I had my phone, I calculated it really fast. 13 2 *

9 + 11 25. So um 9* 1332 + 1125 is $131.13.

Oh, that is the new rate. Okay, moving along. Um, so we were thinking if if we put like 24,000 into the new struct, you know, if we do the one and a half and they do say, let's say 24,000, uh, based on that, our current on a one inch meter, they would pay $330. On the new, it'd be $384. difference of about $53. When you say the new, you mean the um proposed calculation or proposed rate? Okay. Current and proposed. You're right. That I apologize.

No, that's all right. I just want to make sure I understood. You could go to the next slide. Um I just want to show them. Uh Walke is about 42% higher. They just charge a $4 more under their rate. Uh De Moines has a three-step and they just put this into place. They really don't have irrigation. They just take the uh highest rate. Anything over 9,000 gallons, they charge it $10. They just put that into place in February. Again, I think all of these rates are going to change.

Yeah. I during several of the city examples I sat in a room a centralized waterworks meeting with several of the metro managers and when irrigation came up um Clive Johnston Walke De Moines wasn't there but I've heard from De Moine that they are all considering significant changes to their irrigation rates. Significant being raising them. Yes. Right. Correct. Because of I I should clarify. Yes. raising them uh because going into Central Iowa Waterworks and purchasing that capacity uh there's a little bit of sticker shock for some folks.

Right. The Sailor expansion is 150 million. Um the next expansion after that's going to be 300 million. That's 10 years down the road. But it's big big numbers and it's it's basically due to irrigation. Yeah. The need for those expansion, right? Right. Okay. So, do you want to go to the next idea for a flat rate? Yep.

Moving to a flat rate we thought would address a couple issues. It would treat all irrigation users the same. Um, it would eliminate the HOA versus individual uh meter dilemma. Luke attended some HOA meetings and met with these folks. And would you like to speak to that a little bit?

Yeah, briefly. One of the uh problems with a tiered structure is that most of the HOAs, most of their usage ended up in the two times rate, but yet it's an HOA. It's one meter that serves in some cases 30 to 35 homes. So, there's some economies of scale there. Well, if most of the gallons you're running kick you over that top tier, it seems like you're being penalized compared to other systems on an individual basis. So again, I'll repeat it. It seems like they were being penalized because they were a larger group altogether. So it was Sorry, go ahead.

Uh so it was one of the factors that came into play. Now we told them, well, but you don't have 30 individual meters all paying the base rate. So we had a little back and forth. Ultimately, we pulled the actual consumption from each one of these HOAs and ran a comparison if they were all individually metered under that tiered structure. And there ended up being a pretty significant additional per unit cost per month cost enough that we ourselves said this probably wasn't the intention to impact those HOAs in that way. So it was more with the new

with the tiered approach it was more expensive for up the individual and charge them. Correct. Okay. Correct. Yep. So I want to make sure I understand what you said Luke. Um, you pulled all the HOA numbers and if they had all been on individual meters, they would have been they would have had less total water consumption. They would have paid the city less for the same water.

Okay. But because they're on these regional systems that I would argue tend to be managed a little bit better because the HOA it's it's on such a large scale they usually have somebody in charge of managing that system. Um and what we were trying to get after with a tiered structure was asking our residents to be more detailed with how they manage that irrigation water. So HOAs just because of their size were automatically kicked in the more in that penalty tier and charged more. Okay. In addition, this year was a lot drier early on than last year and even before the rates kicked in, they were using a lot more water. So they, you know, that's something that needs to be explained as far as there was more usage. Um, okay. So, what the splat rate thing would not do is it would not uh incentivize a responsible person who uses a minimal amount of water and it does not cover our our irrigation costs, but neither tier is going to. Um, again, we're just trying to be reasonable and

what what would cover the irrigation cost? Um, I'll get I will show you numbers on the next slide of what our irrigation estimates are, what we spend. Um, we could go to the next slide. We believe under the current system we would receive about $800,000 a year. That was based on past usage. Now, this year is different. We had a ban on water usage. So, we really we won't get good numbers this year. Um we do believe going to the one and a half based on 2024 numbers um it would be about 700,000. So by going from the tiered structure to the flat rate would um we we'd be down about $100,000 from our revenues. And that $100,000 difference, is that what HOAs are, you know, just throwing out a term over charged or I I guess I'm trying to un I guess I'm trying to figure out, right, what's what's the amount of money that HOAs are getting overcharged as it were um in our current system versus this $100,000 that we're going to giving up every year. Uh, and that other non-errigating taxpayers are paying additional costs because irrigating, I'm making an assumption, irrigating taxpayers are the ones that are pushing us over the water over over our water limit, driving up our water fees.

I I'm going to look that up. I have that information in here. Let me look it up real quick. As far as the 800 to 700, we we took actual numbers from 2024 for everyone that uses irrigation and that's about 1,266 meters. To tell you the HOA difference, um we'd have to look that up and loop's going to look that up. And that's not really a critical factor for me, but I just wonder how much of that is attributed to the HOA and how much is it attributed to just people who are irrigating when again the average the non-errigating taxpayers are being penalized for the irrigation pushing us over the limit.

That's a true statement. Everyone is paying um it it spreads it across whether you irrigate or not. Um you're you're definitely paying for costs. Can you say if this would cover the cost of the water that's used for irrigation? What our cost is?

It would not cover 100% of the cost. I'll show you on the next spreadsheet what those costs are. This just um gets us to what we think is a reasonable amount. Um, we're trying to get residents or rateayers used to a higher rate and understanding that there is a premium to using treated water on lawns. Um, you know, I suggest reviewing this maybe next year, maybe in two years when we have better numbers, maybe see what metro cities do, but, you know, we'll keep this on the radar and um, be sure and review this probably. Just wanted to highlight Ed said earlier that he couldn't hear me and I just found out that that's true because he asked the exact same question I did a minute and a half before he asked it.

You got a better answer. So if somebody wants to ask it a third time, but we maybe I'll entertain that too, George. So I got to speak up, Ed. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Luke, would you mind hitting that? Next slide. Sorry. Well, the final slide is this will give you um an idea of what our what our costs are and and you know some of these are estimated but we look at the the two first are debt service numbers and I I can safely say that those are attributed to irrigation. Um would we need a new water tower if we if no one irrigated? Probably not. We'd have the storage. We'd be fine. So, our debt service payments beginning this year is 98,000 and it jumps to 276 and that's because that first year is an interestonly payment. Um, but those if you look at those payments, those are attributed to irrigation. Um, the Central Waterworks expansion debt service, the again that jumps up as well because we're doing both these and this year we're doing the Central Iowa Waterworks buyin and we're doing the water tower. So those are first year interest payments and then you can see the difference those jump up over the next few years. Um the the other three like the variable cost for Central Waterworks and the buyin debt service. Um I attributed 35% to and that's could be low but I talked to Matt PFM and we kind of came up with that number thinking that was pretty reasonable amount to um attribute to that portion. And then the on andm budget, uh, we do like water mane upsizing. We we do meter replacements, things of that nature, uh, staff time, uh, in dealing with that type of stuff, uh, we put in 20%. So, we estimate our irrigation costs are about 32% of our overall budget. And then we think in 27 and beyond, it's going to be closer to 45 to 50% of our budget. It's just the reality of the costs. A

lot those expansion costs for Central Waterworks are are pretty high. Okay, I got an answer on the HOA. You're not going to like the answer.

It's a range. Uh so we ran the numbers. We have approximately 517 individual housing units that are served by an HOA. somewhere in the range of anywhere from 12 units per HOA up to I think our largest one is like 38. In some situations where that HOA had minimal usage, there was no difference because they were in the lower tier. If you're in an HOA that used quite a bit of water that kicked them up enough to be in that highest tier, they saw as much as a $10 per unit across the entire HOA. So, if I look at more the conservative side, it could be as low as $6,200 per year. If you look at the more intense and assume they're all intense, it would be $62,000 per year.

Wow. Okay. Okay. So, I that is a huge range. I'd love to show you the spreadsheet as I geek out on that stuff and I would explain why, but um that's the that's the range of what the impact could be. Okay. There's no consistency. I mean, some per some people will irrigate five times a week, some will only do it two times a week. The weather, there's just so many factors,

right? Yeah. I I get all the variables. I'm just trying to figure out a way that the people who don't irrigate at all aren't paying for the people who are irrigating every day. Um and I don't right I mean maybe we this seems a little radical but maybe we write a policy that says you're not allowed to irrigate every day. You can irrigate every other day and that's it. And we see then where our numbers are. Um

Jackie, that was one of the big discussions we had with Central Eye Waterworks. uh we talked about coming up with I think they call them purple lines and so it's a completely separate water distribution system that doesn't have to be portable water that supplies irrigation. The um the director at Central Eye Waterworks mentioned that uh they believe there's a lot of other mechanisms that can be used just simply some education to folks. Uh there are things you can add to your irrigation system that will review if you're connected to the internet. It will do some analysis for your area, determine if there's rain coming, if there was rain, and it will adjust your system accordingly. So, it sounds like there's some technology alone that can significantly reduce irrigation. Maybe that becomes uh mandatory within our systems. But Jackie, I've got to tell you, uh, we've determined that if we charge irrigation users 2.27 times the regular rate, that is roughly equivalent to what they would pay for sewer. So, if we were to ch charge irrigation users what they need to pay, they would eliminate their irrigation meter and just be build like everybody else. There is some value to the city to determine the difference between irrigation water and those that are just using regular water. So if we go too far, we disincent people from even having irrigation meters. Then possibly you make a requirement that everybody has to have an indoor and outdoor meter to to track. I we could jump down a rabbit hole. you can go down quick because um there's just a lot of issues with irrigation. And where we came to after a lot of this

discussion is that simply going to that one and a half times gets us closer to irrigation user paying a more fair share, but it's not where it needs to end up. Right. I I think you're that's your ultimate

I can't hear you, George. Well, just based on being on that committee, you hear kind of what they're thinking and everybody's they're all over the board. I'm guessing in the next two years, you're going to see that go up really high on the irrigation and everybody's just trying to get their feet underneath them and then and figure it out what they need to charge probably to more consistency among the cities, but uh so it might just take a couple years. In the meantime, we're just going to subsidize the high water users. So,

I think it's a good point that what I'd like to see that I like to see the waterworks look at a strategy of uh that would be the same across the metro area as far as control measure, right? And price and such, it' still be up to the individual community set whatever it is. But the control measures could be very similar if not the same, right? And then maybe when the uh when the mayors are meeting and they're having their fish and chips or whatever it is mayors do, they could take a look at those things and see if uh you know it's possible politically for us to push that through councils. So we'd all have a similar approach, right, as far as the control measures go and then each community could determine their prices with what they think is fair. But, uh, I I think that'd be a good way to go. You know, I don't I don't want to be in the business of saying you can only water your lawn twice a week, you know? I mean, that right, but maybe Iowa Waterworks might say, "Well, we got a policy that all of our users this most you water, you got to get some kind of exception or something, right?" And uh, anyway, I I would be much more in favor of that approach myself. So why do we need to do this

year if there's ideas to educate people best practices suggest best practices I'm not involved in that part but there's a group that's doing that it's more the technical people so why do we need to do this now if there's so many questions and so many cities are going to change things next year. Why are we not just sitting back keeping the status quo and waiting until next year to see what happens and where people go? You mean status quo is keeping the tiers in place? Yeah,

I that is certainly an option you have. Okay. I I know that's an option we have. Why is it one that's not I'm not arguing. I'm just asking why is it not one that's recommended? Why is this coming to us now when water costs are going to go up and now we're going to take $100,000 out of our out of our water budget by changing our system? I I'm just asking the question so I can understand better.

The bottom line is the tiers that were chosen are too low. They're way too low. So, I'm going to throw out a number. I don't know how accurate it is, but I'm going to say 80 to 90% of our irrigation users automatically get killed kicked into that highest tier, which is two times the regular rate. And arguably, that is a big jump to make in one year. And do they get do they pay? But we're already there. Sorry, Jason. No, no problem, Jackie. Uh, do they pay two times on the whole thing? Yes. So it's not like a tax situation where you pay

this much and then on this extra you pay this much. You're right. It is it's an inclining. It is. But arguably as soon as you go past one week of usage, everything beyond that is paid at double the rate. Right. But as soon as the city goes past one day of overage the entire rest of the year we pay that elevated rate. Right. What's the first time we go over our allotted amount the whole rest of the year we pay the elevated rate.

We So the blended rate went away when we joined Central Eye Waterworks and we are now purchasing capacity. So arguably there's there's not really a we just have a total amount of water that now we're granted and Wayne I want to say that's 4 4.1 4.1 million gallons compared to the 1.9 million gallons of purchase capacity we used to have. Well now we can exceed that. It's not until we exceed the 4.1 million gallons right

before then we're paying some other communities that have excess capacity. There is a a a higher fee that is paid if you go over I believe you have to go over three days in a row uh to incur that. It's you know a few years ago we had an issue with hydrants being open. It was a one day one off. It's to avoid that. It has to it's customers that repeatedly go over for a few days then you pay a higher rate. There's a fee associated with that.

Okay. So earlier one of the earlier slides gave you know in 2024 we went over four four people went over in 2020 three 12 people you know what slide I'm talking about we went over yeah we went over several times uh when we were at de mo waterworks we did and we had to pay a blended rate right a premium for that now with or with central Iowa waterworks that really doesn't apply supply. Okay. Until we go over 4.107 million gallons, which is more than double what we had. And we haven't gotten there. Is it our highest today is 2.7. Okay. All right.

Last five years. Thank you. I feel much better about the whole thing then. Okay. We still don't want to shepherd our water use because we may have other entities that would like to come in and use water and see us with capacity. They might want to come here.

I will say that um I think that there is it's certainly worthy of noting that irrigation does bring value to your community. I maybe I I can probably only speak for myself personally when I we don't irrigate at my home, my lawn turns brown and then I don't have to mow as much. But when you drive by commercial properties, when you drive by a property that has irrigated and it's a nice lush green lawn, certainly to me that has a much better appearance. Maybe it's not enough to account for subsidizing water for all irrigation users, but it's at least worthy of noting that there's some value,

right? And I agree with that 100%, Luke. It's the people who, and I understand that, you know, you set your irrigation meter on a timer and whatever else, but it's the people who are watering when it's raining. It's the people who are watering every single day. Those are the people that I have an issue with. I agree. Having a nice green lawn is great. You don't have to water every single day to have a nice green lawn. You are simply wasting water. I really wish Brian was here. I feel like he's our resident expert on irrigation. And Jackie, you're you're saying exactly what we have heard Brian say so many times is that it's there's so many folks that abuse it. It's just not necessary. It's unhealthy for your lawn. Right.

I agree that I would also like to get away somehow from the non irrigators subsidizing irrigators. Right. Maybe we can study on that over this next year here. waterworks. So, looks at what they're going to do, right? We can think about that on on how we approach. I would love to say that the impact of higher rates will change behavior. Unfortunately, our experience is that's not the case. Nor is it the case from some of the other communities that we've communicated with,

which just reinforces going higher with the rates. This is a step to get us there. I know I'm arguing against is setting it one. There is there is some level of pain that you're like, okay, that hurts. I think the people that have happened to me have noticed a difference in the race, right? I mean, they notice it. It's not that it's not noticeable. the the thing we're voting on tonight, Jean. Does that occur to you is like this is probably going to be very temporary. I believe we'll make changes.

Yeah. So, we we might be voting on something that is even next year.

I would not doubt that we will looking at it again. very temporary and it's temporary kind of this is this is how I'm seeing it okay for at least one year simplify it give everyone an opportunity to figure out what this new thing or how we're going to get to where we need to get to and $100,000 is kind of for one year is no I I'm just saying how I'm understanding this grand scheme of things with you.

I'm I'm with you. I think education is big. Um I think we need to I think people need to understand it's treated water that they're using for the Yeah. And that cost a lot of money. Yeah. And I like I mean I think Ed and Jackie have both spoken to you know like people who aren't doing it at the end of the day are subsidizing people who are and uh that's probably a good thing to address. You know I heard that. That was pretty clear.

I bet you liked it too. It's philosophical. We can change it,

we cannot change it. It's completely up to you guys. Um, it definitely would be easier to calculate, easier to build, whatever, for that reason entertaining this, right? And I understand her question. I think again what I'm hearing is we're entertaining it just to make it easier for the moment and and recoup more um from irrigation users. The tiered rate, yes, that was different, but compared to even the pre-tier rates, this is bringing back more dollars to offset the cost of irrigation water. Still a step in the right direction. or questions or comments? Any public comment? Hearing none. Can I get a motion to approve the first reading as presented?

Motion. Second. Okay. So, motion by Cool, seconded by Miki. Any further discussion? Thanks for the presentation. Yeah, thanks. Kaylin, would you call a role? Uh, Council Member Brown, yes. Yes. Livingston, no. Mighty, yes.

Item 6F is a second reading of an ordinance amending the official zoning map of the city of Norwalk, Iowa by reszoning 1.6 6 acres of 848145th place and 848545th place from AR agriculture reserve to RE1 single family real estates. So at the last meeting council approved this resoning the first reading of this ordinance amendment. Luke do you got anything to add? Nothing new to add. Any questions or discussion from council or public comment? Second. So I got a motion by cool, seconded by Miki Ken, will you please call the RO? Council member P. Yes. Yes. Mine. Yes.

Brown. Yes. All right. That motion carries. Item 6G. Envision 2 2035 Highway 28 jurisdiction discussion. So, Council Member Cool uh has put together a committee to look into our Envision 2035 goal of taking over jurisdiction of the portion of Highway 28 that runs through Norwalk. Ed, what'd you find out?

Well, I mean, it was good working with smart people. That was all right. Found out some interesting things. The state has a policy that it won't allow adoptation of sections of a highway that cuts off other sections. So for us to be able to adopt the highway, even if we wanted to, we'd be dependent upon our neighbors, either Warren County or the city of De Mo to adopt a section highway. Now, I contacted both of them and the staff also contacted the staff that work for those. We got the same answers. So, I assume it's pretty reasonable that that's their positions and they're not interested in adopting a section of the highway. So, given the state's policy, it would seem unlikely we'd be able to do it now anyway, but kind of think it off the table. But we had uh discussion as a committee on the on the value of doing it if the opportunity presented itself. And the recommendation, a matter of fact, the unanimous recommendation the committee was not to do it. And some of the reasons why were because the property adjacent to the highway is already pretty well being developed out. a lot of the changes that we may want to make, we could probably get them done through working with the state. And that was one thing I was hoping to learn from our discussion now is what we were hoping to gain if we were able to do that, right? What we're hoping to gain and is there another way to do those things we're hoping to gain. And then as we pushed back in our chairs a little bit, we got to thinking about

the future and and where would be the best place to focus. And uh we discussed creating access avenues, access ways and uh development, economic development ways. By that I mean, you know, we we're already looking at potentially putting a a street or highway along the south side of the river. And so we had discussion of maybe exploring partnering with other communities to take a look at an access route and development route that might go from Highway 35 back up to 80 east of the De Mo. And if we focused on that likely over a number of years, I mean, I don't know how long it would take to develop that, but if we approached it as a as a partnership with other communities, we could probably present a plan to uh the metro area planning organizations and see if we could seek their endorsement or approval of the project. And that likely would cause us to have potentially a a pretty good development area, uh pretty good potential for economic investment and certainly open up a larger area, you know, for for us to work with. So, in closing, mayor, I guess my question would be, what does a council believe that they could gain by uh acquiring the highway? And are those things something that we could find another way to satisfy?

Yeah. I think one of the things that we were want that we wanted to look at or to accomplish there was community survey showed that there was some dissatisfaction with the condition of roads. I think the assumption was is that was highway 28 and you talked about the traffic ability or maintenance of the road surface or Yeah, maintenance. Correct. And and and so a and I think Highway 28 is slated for reconstruction in 2033, 2034. Yeah. Like that, right? Yeah.

Uh, you know, after that, if we could take it over, we could maintain it at a higher level than what the DOT seems to be maintaining at and maybe bring that satisfaction level of our residents up up a bit. Okay. Well, it's possible they may change their policy or the adjacent jurisdictions may change their mind, right?

But I guess I' I'd suggest then that we might just kind of put it on the table and uh you know when that time starts rolling around around close take another look at it. So the recommendation by you guys was to take no action at this time, do not acquire the highway, but you instead of completing the completing the goal, so to speak, you just want to table it and look at it later at a later date. Yes, sir. Okay. Can I get a motion that says that?

Okay. All right. Okay. I'll second his motion. Well, since it's your since it's your committee, I'll give the I'll give the motion to you and give George the second. Well, that's pretty nice of you, mayor. I appreciate it. Any further discussion? Usually Brown tries to jump in there. I know. All right, Kaylin, would you call a roll? Council member Livingston? Yes. Yes. Brown? Yes. Yes.

All right, that motion carries. Item seven, future agenda items. So, the purpose of this item is for council to give direction to staff by way of motion to have items placed on a future agenda. It's not for the discussion of the merits of the subject matter. It's just to get it on there. So, any future agenda items for tonight? Anybody think about?

Well, I I like uh you know what Ed was talking about with doing work on okay staging out um where we want to get to with water rates over time. So, I don't know if there needs to be anything formal uh or if that work's just going to happen regardless. I I think that what's going to happen and I think we're going to have a lot more feedback from other Central Waterworks members. Great.

So that we have a more metrowide decision on Okay. Yeah, that'd be good. You are arguably arguably going to get more feedback from us than you even want on that subject. Right. Okay. No problem. Okay. Anything else? Mayor, I do have something. I know this is for council, but I want to bring this up because of some requests that have been coming in as far as being on future council agendas.

Okay. I've been taking your lead and recommending when we have somebody contact us about social service, some kind of donation. Um, I have been consistently telling folks to come in under the comment section. They have three minutes to present whatever type of request they would like to be put on a future agenda. And then during this time, you can decide if you want to invite that organization back for a formal presentation. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Yeah. I like Okay, I will stay that course. Awesome. Thank you. Great.

Okay. Uh item eight, council inquiries and staff updates. Like to remind everybody that this is a much less formal portion of the meeting. You're going to hear some joking, maybe some back and forth banner. That's good. And we believe that this can build camaraderie and cohesiveness between staff and council. So, uh George Nothing. All right. Yeah, I don't have anything either, mayor.

No, I hate to break the the trend there. Um, 77 permits in September. So, we had the uh Callaway project come in with 50 town home permits. So, that's keeping us busy. But then 27 single family is uh pretty solid for a month. Um, so getting that Saddle Ridge uh subdivision done. Um, that's really where a lot of we're starting to get stuff going. So, that's been good. Um, you did also approve another LMI project tonight in consent. Um, so thank you for that. But I thought I'd give a little update on that. We've been running that program for four years now. Um, we've given out a total of $186,000 of assistance for needed home repairs. And about uh 75% of that is through Central Iowa Housing Trust Fund grants that we've gotten. So, um that grant cycle is coming up again this fall. So, you'll see us asking those submit for another one and we'll likely keep that going.

Cool. Great. Awesome. Garrett,

nothing to the project on 50th Avenue has been progressing. Very nice. Um, I understand it's frustrating for some people out there. There is some delays with the temporary signals. One of the advantages um of the out ofstate contractor is all they're they're in from out of state and they're they're working long hours and they're really making great progress. So it's that's good to see the work they're doing. One of the final stages of the project is milling the surface of the pavement. So you'll see patches and some val bars being put in the pavement. They're leaving those high. So when you drive it rides rough now that's intentional. When we're done those that'll get milled down. It'll be a good surface. And then work on Echo Ridge Trail starts next week. There's asphalt patching and overlay on Echo Ridge Trail north of Beardsley. Just FYI.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Fire Marks. I have a few things for you. Uh we wrapped up fire prevention week last last Thursday with our annual open house and we had over 700 uh guests come through the door. So that was

our largest turnout for us ever. Um, also the safe haven baby box uh blessing ceremony is scheduled for Tuesday, November 4th at 3:00. And then um our ladder truck is officially out of service right now um due to some issues that we're having. The truck is 20 years old and it is in the 2028 CIP to be replaced. However, Chief Porter will be um coming November 6th u bringing you a proposal to remedy this situation. So, I just kind of wanted to give you a heads up for that and that's about it.

Thank you, Chief.

Yeah. Um you noticed in the uh monthly report from the police department uh under the reported crime section, our property crimes have been been increasing this year compared to last. Um some of that is theft. We've had several car burglary series um throughout the summer. Uh all of almost all of which were solved. Two of those series were local um people and two of them were out of town people. Um but what was significant as an increase was the number of stolen cars and uh 2023 and 2024 year to date we had zero. Um and so far year to date we've had 10 this year. Um so a little analysis of that to see if there was a trend or something we could do to try and prevent them um indicated that um of the 10 that are reported it's really nine from Norwok one of those reported is a recovery from de mo in that instance young man stole a car in Norwok drove it to de mo uh it broke down and when he needed to come home he stole a different car in de mo and drove it back to Norwok and so that was all important in one incident, but it has two two stolen cars where the door lock is actually one stolen and one recovered. Three of them were unauthorized use situations where uh it was a civil issue twice and once was a criminal issue, divorces or a brother used a car that wasn't supposed to. Um two of the uh stolen cars were um uh were charged. um people arrested. Uh four of the stolen cars were the result of car burglaries where the during the car burglary series, the suspects found a they were breaking

into random cars, but they found a car unlocked with the keys in it and took it. Um, so the lesson is don't leave your keys in your car and don't leave it unlocked and then it'll probably not get stolen because four of the actual stolen cars were the result of the key being in the car and it being unlocked. And that's all across the city. There's no one geographic location where that's concentrated. Um, as another uh, as our property crimes have increased, we've also had 397 more calls for service um, year to date this year compared to last. So, our our business is increasing at the police department. Um we were asked to do an analysis of our flat camera LPR camera system um successes or uses by the county attorney. If as you recall the county attorney is paying for four five license plate reader cameras we have and they were doing a and they're using grant money to do that. They're doing a grant report. They wanted report on the camera usage is countywide. So, we provided them a report. Um, we've made eight arrests based on the cameras. Um, two probation violations, two controlled substance uh violations, two uh suspended revoked driver's license violations, a harassment, a theft, and two thefts. Uh we've also been able to use the cameras to help us prove um prove cases that resulted in criminal charges for displaying a dangerous weapon, controlled substances, drug paraphernalia, theft first, and a burglary third. The theft first was the stolen car that the young man drove in

De Moine. And actually the cameras helped us solve De Moines's uh stolen car that got dumped here. So, the campus seems to be working well. Um, and uh, as we get we'll do another report in six months probably to just keep track of um, how they're doing for us. And then lastly, I wanted to say that on Friday, I was um, excited to receive an email from the Department of Justice and telling us that we were awarded the COPS grant that I applied for back in June. Um that's $250,000 for two officer positions if we choose to add them. Um as we go forward over the next couple years, next council meeting there'll be a consent agenda item asking for approval to accept the grant from the Department of Justice. That's all I have.

All right. Thank you, Jane. That's it. I had more. Just kidding. Uh just one item. The auditor will be here next meeting to present the audit for fiscal year 25. Thank you, Chinese. No, Lindsay. Nothing tonight. Thank you, Kayla. Jason.

Yeah. One thing, um, uh, uh, we had a comment this week from somebody noticing things about the wall that we put in and, uh, I found myself kind of sympathetic to some of the stuff he was saying in terms of the top looking really professional and level. And I assume we're doing stuff about that. So, it's not like I'm not assuming, but um I I would also hope that the company we employed would figure out how to make that right.

I you know, you brought this up. You emailed me earlier. I just received a text from the engineer and he said if the question is about the capsu, uh we are doing a punch list walkthrough next week. So, uh, I have communicated with that engineer on the project and I think Lindsay's been working on a little bit as well that there seems to be a few things we just want to make sure we're double-checking and make sure the quality control is where it needs to be, but that engineer is double-checking these things. So, hopefully we'll see those things improve corrected.

Great. I mean, it's just such an important project for us. We finally did it and it would feel bad to me and when I drive, you know, it's like there are some clear places where like who put that like how did we decide that this was a good, you know, so all right, Jackie, the wall does in my opinion as well and my wife wanted to make sure that I mention that out loud. Okay. So, she's she might be getting an email at the city, too.

All right, Jack. Um, so, notwithstanding my vote against the um water rates, I really do appreciate all the information, all the work that went into getting us all that information. Um, so just want to say thank you.

All right. Thanks. Oops. So, tonight uh under the consent agenda was action to approve the new parks and recre wage. That's a pretty key step in bringing Carissa Williams on board. So, at the November 6 council meeting, I think Shaunisa is planning to introduce our next director. So, we're excited to have her here and that will be her second day of work. She's starting on the 5th of November. We're not gonna spare for that first day. I'm sure it'll be a whirlwind. I'm sure.

Okay. Uh so I went to the uh there's Metro Advisory Council meeting on Tuesday. Uh main topic there was uh scooters, ebikes, and trail bikes. Yeah. that uh and my understanding is is that the MO was there to present as well. Uh the MO is looking at model ordinance. The Metro Advisory Council is going to look at model ordinance and Plexa which is okay law enforcement executive association. Okay. Wow. Uh that's a mouthful.

Yeah. They are going to look at model ordinance as well as far as regulating scooters, ebikes, and miniikes, I would call them, on on trails. I would already say that minibikes are already illegal and they are going to stay illegal. And so I'm just let you know I'm writing my article for November is going to have something in there saying that they are illegal so that when parents see me well there's a $300 motorbike on with an actual gas motor for sale at Costco for 300 bucks. They don't buy it for Christmas because they're not legal within the town. So, just saying. Uh, so that's all I have.

I think it'd be kind of interesting to watch the police department try to enforce something. Yeah, I I Well, I have actually told the police department that, you know, that if they see somebody out on the trails on a bike that has a gas motor on us to pull them over and impound it if they're if they're underage. All right. make their make their parents come and pay the inbound fee and pick it up. Yeah. So, just only have to do that once. I think they probably only have to do that once. Yeah. I think that organization should be called Plexa because it has a double E.

Plex. Okay. I'll I'll suggest that next time I I'm there. Thank you. Yep. All right. I got you relayed a compliment on the sign during the public meeting. I got a compliment already on the city sign. Compliment on the city sign already. Oh yeah. Okay. I haven't seen it. New sign is up on the north side of town. Okay. So the entrance sign is up. It would be interesting to go and see it in the dark. See if it's see if they actually have an electrified. Yeah. Does it glow? That'd be kind of cool. So uh that's all I had. I would entertain a motion to adjurnn. Motion second.

Okay. Motion by Brown, seconded by Cool. All those in favor say I. I. All those oppos same. We're journ 7:10 p.m. All right. Not bad.