City Council - Regular Meeting

You want to make a I think we have to do that right after roll call, I think. Right. Yeah. What are you looking at? What do you want to modify?

Oh my god. Uh, we're live. Let me make sure your mics are on. All right, we got six o'clock. Everybody ready? Anybody not ready? I'm ready. Let's do this. Let's call the Ogalsby City Council meeting to order. Roll call, please. Baldridge, here. Cullinin, here. McDermott here. Moy, here. Currin, here. Before we do the pledge of allegiance, I'm told we might have a modification to the agenda. that

yeah go ahead to modify the agenda by placing the mayor's report as number one item. The second item will be the going into executive session. The third item will be asking to table the uh thing that I had on there. I guess I don't know where that came from or who put it on there but I don't the GTI information I don't think is uh it's not available. It's not ready to be talked about publicly. What GTI information? Where is it at? Which which item I had on there. someone put on there for me to discuss about GTI and the rate plan. Do you have a different agenda? No, I don't I don't see that on my agenda. Which number do you have? My suggestion there, Rich, that we we could just move to table that if we get to it at some point. I don't know which one you're talking about because I don't see one on it.

It's not on. Um, it might have been a draft one. Is is there is there a need to go into executive session for one of our items prior to because I hate to have an audience of people here. Which which one do you want to go into executive session for so I can read off the correct one if we do move it? Personal matters. Okay. 120 ILCS. Yep. Okay. 2C2 probably Jason the last one or it could be 2C1. Is it collective bargaining or performance discipline? Wait a second. Okay, that's the last one, Jason.

Okay, so you want to make a motion to move the mayor's report up and let's do them as separate motions then. Um, so you want to make is that correct? You making a motion to move the mayor's report up as the next item. I was making a motion to move the two things. You want to try to vote for both of them at the same time? I don't see why we can't. I think it makes it confusing, but okay. All right. Um, so the motion is to move the mayor's report up and to move one of the executive sessions up as well um to the first item. Is there a second for that? I'll second that motion. Okay. Roll call. Uh, Baldridge. Hi. Colin, no. McDermott. I. Moy. I. Currin.

No. Okay. Um, is there a specific order to those though? You want mayor's report first, I guess. Okay. Um, [clears throat] I feel like we should do the pledge first. Can we do the pledge first? Let's stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Okay. Um, mayor's report. Uh, first thing I want to do is I wanted to thank the electric department. um they had a relatively large outage. Um and not only do they always do a great job, but I just wanted to say this is one of the advantages of of our small community that we have here. Not saying that Amron doesn't do a great job with their technicians and and things like that, but when you have a small community here, our people are not only they're more than just technicians. They're friends, their family, their relatives, um neighbors of people. So, they always work super hard for that and I appreciate that. Uh the other thing I wanted to add to that was that I specifically had four residents that called in to give thanks for that and I really appreciate that because it is so rare that we can uh get that kind of recognition for usually the kind of things that we get feedback on is is usually things of a negative nature. So I really appreciate that. And the le the the last thing I want to get which is really weird to talk about as the first thing I wanted to talk a little bit about uh 2026. So, um, over the the holidays and stuff like that, uh, at church, I there was a there was a thing that somebody talked about with, uh, don't let people steal your joy. Um, and and giving it away. Um, you know, when it comes to me, there's about four or five people locally that that give me a hard time and about half a dozen na nationally. There's 8 2 billion souls on this planet. That's not a bad number. So, 2026 is filled with a lot of good things that we have. Ogalsby is one of the best places to live. Um, there is so much good that we have on the horizon. and some of it's long-term like for example the thousand acres that's about to develop around us here uh with uh with the state parks that's going to be a huge economic boom to the city that's probably years away. We got another possible one that I'm hoping we're going to be able to announce in several months if it's going to happen or not. That'll be a big one. And I have another one here in about a month that hopefully within a month that we'll be able to talk about here. Um there's a lot of great things on the horizon uh for Oglesby. So um be part of of giving that

joy to other people. We have a lot of great organizations in the city, uh, volunteer organizations, things that people were part of, people that are people volunteering to be coaches, whatever it is. There's a lot of great ways to give back to our community and to be part of all the great things that we have here. It's still one of the best places to live. So, uh, that's really all I had. So, kind of a weird thing to do up front, but we'll talk about that, I'm sure. All right. The next item that got moved up was one of the executive sessions for the employment compensation, discipline, performance, or dismissal of specific employees 5CS120/2C1. Can I get a motion to go into executive session for that specific item? Motion to enter executive session. I'll second. Roll call, please. Uh, Baldridge.

Hi. Cullinin. Hi. McDermott. Hi. Moy. I. Uh, Curtain. Hi. All right. I apologize everybody for the delay. Um I'm not sure how long we'll be in there. So we'll be back out and obviously we got a full agenda to do. So

Pat, I got a question for you. If we had multiple things that we were going to talk about for this item, would you probably need to do all of them right now then, too? I mean, you can make a motion. Yeah. Okay.

So, we still could do the other one at the end. I was in bed before the midnight hour.

There's still a few people here. We didn't put the We didn't put the music on. There was music. Okay.

Okay. Okay, we're back in open session. Roll call, please. Sorry. Uh Baldridge here. Cullinin here. McDermott [clears throat] here. Moy here. Curran here. All right. I apologize about that everybody. Uh number four, uh public comment on agenda items only, please. Okay, mayor, before I start, I'd like to ask I've done a lot of research on this.

Can you pull your Can you pull the mic thing close to you? That way people can hear you. No, the the button button underneath. I watch everybody struggle with [laughter] Sorry, what did you say? Go ahead. I I just want to before I start, I I'd like to ask that you let me complete what I have to say. I'm not sure what the time is limit. It's It's not lengthy, but I just would hate to be interrupted. So, what I usually do is after five minutes have elapsed, I'll say, "Ma'am, your five minutes has elapsed if you could wrap up or summarize." So, I will try not to interrupt you before that. Okay. I thought it was three minutes. I'm not going to go. You're good to go.

Okay. So, first of all, I want to know I'm going to I'm going to give you a little bit of history because I think it's important to understand um my point. Um I I'm addressing uh I believe that is Do you have an agenda number nine? Well, there's there's five items in there. Here you go. The inspectors. Yes. Okay.

Discussion and possible action on ordinance returning building and electrical inspectors to the electric commissioner. First of all, I'd like to point out that that is incorrect. I, as you know, am city clerk, have been city clerk um and have been involved with the [clears throat] city for um about 14 years. And to my knowledge and based on the research that I have done, the inspectors have always been under the um guidance of the mayor, not the the building or the electrical commissioner at all. And that did change in 2023 when Commissioner Stephanelli came aboard and his expertise made it sense to uh to shift it to accounts and finance. So um in 1913 Oglesby adopted the commission form of government and established five areas of oversight. Public affairs, public safety, streets and improvements, accounts and finances and public property for more than 75 years. Those ordinances that established their roles of those positions went unchanged. I think in 1975 there was an addition computers became important and commissioner um Corless uh was granted uh oversight over computers as they brought them into the city. Um, so for more than 75 years, nothing really changed. In 2019, the new council's first action was to rewrite commissioner roles based on the commissioner's self-proclaimed strengths and personal agendas. They would later alter these roles six times in four years. I think most will agree that is not good government. The current council made their own changes in May of 2023, which seemed to

restore most of the original roles with a few changes that basically distributed some of the public affairs responsibilities which the mayor typically oversees to others. At the time, I felt this was the reset the city needed to restore professionalism and civility to the council. And that's when this council said, "Hold my beer." This council, more than any other council in the past, has demanded autonomy in their areas of oversight. This was all well and good until recently with what I understand has been no meaningful discussions with the people involved in code enforcement. Two commissioners proposed shifting the responsibility of code enforcement from accounts and finance commissioner Cullinin to public property commissioner Baldridge. My question to you, Commissioner Baldridge and No, what's changed? Commissioner Baldridge, I believe that you said at the last meeting that your experience as a concrete finisher makes you more knowledgeable about construction and more qualified than Commissioner Cullinan to be over the inspectors. I'd like to say that first there are very few examples of Oglesby elected officials who are truly qualified for the roles that they assume. It is unrealistic to think that commissioners have to be skilled in the everyday operations of their departments. That's what city employees and professionals like engineers and auditors and um attorneys, that's what they bring to the table. So, I don't I I I think if you could look at yourselves and ask, "Am I really qualified to be the uh the the head of an electric department, a 2.3 million dollar enterprise? What in my personal experience does that or am I really

qualified to oversee a police department and and manage the day-to-day activities?" And I think the answer to that is no. Second, I'm curious as to why both of the commissioners saying Cullinin's interest and involvement in local politics was more important than that candidate's credentials and experience in that field. I also see this change as a blow to employee morale. No employee should have to answer to two commissioners when it comes to their daily duties. Handing this authority over to the commissioner of public property is effectively creating a situation in which the inspectors, the city clerk's office, and the police department will be under the control of two commissioners. Last but not least, in the short time that Austin has been a commissioner, he has presented himself as someone who makes decisions based on best practices and what's truly in the best interest for the city and its residents. He does his research. His decisions are fact-based and fair. In my time spent with Austin, when he was presented with any possible situation requiring enforcement, his first question to me always was, "What does code say?" He didn't ask who made the complaint, and he didn't ask whose property, who owned the property. He wanted to know what the code said and how we address it. That's not always been true. I could rattle off the halfozen instances when in the last two years politics entered into enforcement decisions. As someone who is part of the process of writing the land development code, who served at the zoning administrator, and who firmly believes in maintaining the quality of our neighborhoods, I ask you to vote no. This change does not benefit the citizens of Bulglesby. And honestly, I think it's political bullying and power grabbing.

Commissioner McDermott. Yes, ma'am. I'm going to specifically ask you to consider your vote. I'm not sure that you truly understand the power that [clears throat] you have right now. I ask you to ask yourself how this change benefits the residents of Oglesby. Please co keep code enforcement free from politics and personal agendas. If you believe that maintaining properties should be a priority, then rather than vote for this ordinance, support the building inspectors, city clerk's office, and the police department by allowing them to do their jobs. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate that.

Are there any other public comments on agenda items only? Seeing none, we'll move on. Number five, approve minutes from the December 15th, 2025 regular meeting. If there's no additions, corrections, or modifications, can I get a motion to approve the minutes? Uh, if we're not going to approve the minutes, do we need to table them? Is everybody exhausted because we had an executive session before? I need to either table something. I'll make a motion that we table them. Second. Okay, we're tableabling minutes. Uh, roll call, please. Aldrich. Hi. Colin. I. McDermott I Moy I

Curran I not sure what we're tableling but okay six approve minutes from the October 6th October 20th November 17th December 1st and December 15th 2025 executive session if there's no additions corrections or modifications. Can I get a motion to approve the executive session minutes? I apologize but I've yet to be able to those and take notice of them. Uh I did put it on the agenda for an alternative solution possibly. Okay. Um, for that reason, I would like to table the passage of the minutes. I'll second [clears throat] that. All right. More than one person feels they need to table them. I get a motion to uh approve tableling. Baldridge. I sorry. Roll call. I'm sorry. Calvin. I. McDermott. I. Moy. I.

Currin. I. Number seven. Approve bills presented for payment in the amount of 1,430,535.90. If there's no additions, corrections, or modifications, can we get a motion to approve the build? I imagine you're going to explain. Yeah. So, it's a viscering payment. Um, the way the loan works uh is basically that we pay visering and then we get the loan dispersed back to us from um the IEPA. So, um that's kind of an odd format, but that's how it works. Um and then the other big thing is just our IMEA payment. So,

we're going to have that happen numerous more time. Any Ross, any idea how many more times that's going to happen? That's going to happen a lot of times, right? This is the third pay, sorry, the fourth pay process right now and we're 15% of the way through the job. So, it's going to happen a lot more times. Maybe something for the future. We maybe we want to separate those because that does look weird without an explanation. So, but for now, we can approve them if that's good. Those funds have already been dispersed to the city. I know. So, those funds are being used Yeah, that's why I'm wondering if maybe a different way to present it may make it a little less confusing then. So, but can I get a motion to approve the bills? Uh, I will motion that we approve bills presented for payment in the amount of 1,396,326.86

400 the new one. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, I'm looking at the old agenda. That's my bad. Uh, I will motion that we approve bills presented for payment in the amount of $1,430,535.90. Thank you. I'll second that motion. Roll call, please. Baldrich. Hi. Cullinin. Hi. McDermott. I. Moy. I. Currin. I. Number eight. Approve payroll for December 19th, 2025 in the amount of $64,48747. If there's no additions or corrections or modifications. Can I get a motion to approve the payroll? I will motion that we approve payroll for December 19th, 2025 in the amount of $64,48747. I'll second. Roll call, please. Baldridge. Hi. Colin in. I McDermott. [clears throat] Hi Moy.

Hi Curran. Hi. Number nine, old business. A discussion and possible action on ordinance returning building and electrical inspectors to electric commissioner Baldridge. Uh it's my understanding that we've already discussed and uh voiced our opinions on the passage of the ordinance. We expected the attorney to draft the ordinance and uh I believe that's what's on the agenda tonight is to pass or not pass the ordinance. Okay. I'll go around the room. My comments. Yeah, that's my question, too. Do we have the ordinance? We had the ordinance. Yeah, I sent it to Jen on Friday. I don't know. I put it in the drive. I saw ordinances maybe. It was at the end of the day when I finally got it done. But yeah.

Um Yeah, I see ordinances for the variance, but I don't see ordinances for that. So, I can I can send I can go get it. I have it here, Jen, if you need it quickly. Yeah. How's it read?

I will uh I'll speak my two cents on it. So, um at the last meeting, I I voiced really my main concern with it, which is kind of the process um uh that was kind of taken to get to this point. Um I do think and I I think it's rather evident that um there is uh some degree of political tension uh in the city of Ogulby. Uh and I think uh this is a good example of that. The fact that something like this was placed on the agenda, nothing was said to me about it. Um you know, I I would have at least appreciated a heads up. Um, but I also think, um, kind of alluding to what Becky said, and I'll mention this again earlier, but I I think just kind of willy-nilly changing things, um, is a symptom of dysfunction, which the previous council had started. Uh, and so I I don't like that. But I will talk about a few other things. Um Becky touched on uh some of them, but again uh moving another commissioner into oversight of people working in city hall uh further clouds boundaries between commissioners. And we've already had kind of a number of uh scuffles that have happened behind the scenes about um whose responsibilities are whose responsibilities and I don't think making that more confusing is necessarily a good idea. Um, additionally, um, I had actually the day before, and I mentioned this at the last meeting, um, the day before this was placed on the agenda, I had sent out an invite, and I granted I should have done it earlier, um, but I had sent out an invite to, um, the building inspector,

Commissioner Moy, uh, Chief Margus, uh, to sit down and and discuss, uh, enforcement of building code and city ordinances. is I I had that meeting

uh with uh Burton uh our building inspector and uh only Burton on I believe it was the 29th of December. Um and uh what Burton and I discussed uh was a process because I I think there's two big things at play here and why uh certain building codes aren't being enforced. I think it's a combination historically of politics, but more recently of uh process. I guess there's not a I don't think there's um a a good process in place to actually um identify remedy these uh building code violations. And so I'll actually show you um something that I pieced together. Um I have mentioned um that I am in the midst of trying to migrate the city uh to um Microsoft. Uh and I I think there's a good reason for it. Um the we currently have for email, but we don't really have uh the suite of Office 365 uh products. I'm not there yet. The suite of Office 365 products that would make this relatively seamless. Uh we have basically our emails. We have a perpetual license in the office for um office 2014 which lacks these features and I I really do think um this getting this down would really move us into 2026. Um it's kind of industry standard but let me pull this up for you. So, one of the things I did here, um, and this is something that I've talked about before, um, is there absolutely needs to be some sort of a universal form that people can submit, um, that everybody, well, everybody who uh, needs

to know about a ordinance, building code violation, whatever, everybody can see. Okay. Um, as I I think I might have said at a previous meeting, um, that people on the council were curious about building permits, uh, and you know, when who's filing building permits, what are they filing them for, when are they filing them, whatever. We moved that over to the cloud to Excel. Um, and now everybody can see that at just a click on their phone. Um, they can they can see all of that. And I really think we need something similar for this. And so what I did was I put together a code violation form. Um, and this would be universal. It'd be used by every department. Uh, but basically what you do is you select your type of complaint, whether it's a building, electrical complaint, a plumbing complaint, an ordinance complaint, a zoning violation, whatever. You type in the location of the complaint. You have the option to leave contact information so the person who's investigating the complaint can follow it up or can follow up on it with you. um because they'll likely need more information. And then you have uh you have to provide information on what exactly it is uh that is the basis of your complaint. And so what happens is and this is the beauty of for all of the negative things about you know AI and automation and whatever this is one of the beauties of living in uh 2026 is you can actually put together using Microsoft's Power Automate tool. Um, it's an automation tool. Um, you can actually put a flow together where when a new response is submitted, uh, the Excel spreadsheet that this is linked to, which I'll show you in a sec, uh, pulls that information into it. And so that Excel spreadsheet is what everybody can see, that Excel spreadsheet pulls this information into it from the forms and it's there and it's visible and

nobody has to manually input it. And then better yet, um when you select uh building, electrical, plumbing, zoning, whatever, um it will this switch down here, it will send an automatic email uh to whoseever uh area of concern it is. And so if you put a building electrical complaint in, it will send an automatic email to Burton Levens, our building electrical inspector. Uh if you put in a uh plumbing thing, it'll send it to Alt. If you send if you put in an ordinance thing, general ordinance thing, it will send it to the police department. Okay. Uh and so all automated reduces the amount of paperwork that people have to do. And I'll actually show you uh the Excel sheet as well. This is uh this is what it would look like on our end. Uh this is what the how the information would be provided to us or presented to us. Uh basically when it comes in I actually filled out one for my house just I don't think there's any complaints but you know uh just as an example uh it comes in automatically uh it gets put in as an automatic input method. You can actually add manual uh entries to it by selecting this drop down here and putting manual. Uh if you if somebody calls in calls it in doesn't fill out the form. There's the status of it, the date that it was submitted, the type of complaint it is, and this uh basically the way the automation works is whatever it says in here, it sends that email to whoever's area of concern it is. The location of the complaint, the complaint contact information, the complaint information, that's all stuff that's from the form automatically populated into the Excel spreadsheet. Okay? And then there's form there's a few fields here or a few columns here uh for the actual person who's tasked with investigating the violation to fill out. So data first contact with complaint the complainty response was action taken yes or no they can put down the applicable

ordinance uh and then they list a follow-up date. They list a solution and then they can also add administrative notes. And so what I did here was I went on Lasal County property tax assessor's website or whatever and I just took a picture of my house. I uploaded it to one drive. I created a sharable link and uh just for documentation for evidence you can actually it will link you to that picture. Uh and so or whatever pictures you can link it to a folder and it will show multiple images. Okay. Um, and so we've taken the first steps on this and yeah, granted I probably could have taken them earlier. I that's that's fine. That's a fair point. Whatever. Um, but the the steps have been taken. And frankly, had this not ever been placed on the agenda, since I did take action on this the day before it was placed on the agenda, we could have already had a resolution to this. We could have all been on the same page. I could have I could have met with Commissioner Moy in the police department and we could have moved on this sooner than we are now because we have to decide ultimately whose department it's it's going to be. Um the I mean that's that's basically all I have to say about it. Um I'll yield my time. So

Okay, Commissioner B, thank you foring your time. It

was very [laughter] good. It was very good. Um, no. And I think that's great administrative stuff. I don't think that that would the oversight would change that. I mean, your guys's role wouldn't change as far as accepting building permits, accepting fees, processing those, and getting them to Burton. It's just if there's a complaint about a building permit thing, wouldn't someone who has more construction background be the appropriate person to discuss that? I didn't when I made my change, I didn't expect that Rich would be in there. bossing around the girls in the office. It would all be flowed just like it is now. I mean, are you involved in the day-to-day every time an building permits issued that you're assigning it to Burton?

No. No. I mean, it just kind of automatically flows that way. And if there's an issue, then it would go to the person who has the construction knowledge. I can I respond? Yeah.

Okay. What I would say um about that is um at the last meeting um Commissioner Baldridge uh said something very similar. He admitted that it comes down to who has the knowledge in the given situation, but then he referenced a situation with the property on Watson where he said all of us, this was his quote, "Look stupid because none of us knew what we were talking about." And he said, "Well, it's better to have me in there who at least knows a little bit about it." And so I mean what I would say in that case is I I think and it's no fault of Commissioner Baldridge. We all have our our you know things that we're experts in and I'm sure you know more about concrete than Burton does. Uh but what I would say though is I think as far as uh the totality of uh the building code I I think Burton and really structures and whatever else. I I would think that Burton probably knows a lot more than you and I just I don't know how exactly you'd be a check on [clears throat] that. So

just want to make sure that we keep going around. Everybody gets first. Did you have any more that you wanted to You asked a question, I think, or something. That was You were good. No, I'm good. Okay. Commissioner McG, [clears throat] um I'm going to ask, do you have the uh sewer and water the paper that was Aaron handed you the other day? I do. I'm going to read I'll read that when I get to my thing. Well, that's the reason why I'm asking. You want me to read it now for you? Well, if you would, please.

Sure. under the um street and water commissioner. It it says this in one of the lines of all ordinances, resolutions, rules, and regulations pertaining to the water department, the sewer department, the street department, and the plumbing inspector, and the commissioner may prescribe and enforce any other rules and regulations in order to work toward the efficient and economical management of the department, not in conflict with any law ordinance or resolution. So, it does say the word plumbing inspector in there. It is not under that person though. The daybyday operation goes through to finance. Is that correct? I'm sorry. You're asking me. What are you asking me? The dayby-day financing part of it goes through to finance. Correct.

Yeah. I would suggest that that needs to be put in there and then even with the electric department be the same. You see what I'm saying? A day [clears throat] by day. the finance and is doing the plumbing and water and everything else. Correct. The only time I get involved is when it's directly an issue when when something ties into a private plumbing thing into that. That's so there's a little bit there is some relation to that. I'm going to talk about that a little bit, but well that's where I'm getting at. That's where I think that's what I was trying to make the argument last time is the the departments don't have anything to do with the inspectors.

See, that was recently brought up to my attention and I think that needs to be in there. Well, I'm sorry. What? What needs I think that that needs that's what needs to be in there. That was recently brought up to my attention earlier today about the dayby-day functions should be in there. Pat I don't want to interject but just based on the day by day functions is operated by the finance the only time I get in there daytoday functions of what Mac the building plumbing inspectors and everything else the only way I get involved is if there's an actual can you share that confrontation I'm not sure that's just the case I just I don't know read it again

and is this a code section this is it's it's the code se this is just a snippet But it's the code section underneath the uh the the street and water commissioner u is what it says public whatever it is public improvement your your spot that's what it says that's the only mention of the word public plumbing inspector right is what I'm saying but the dayby-day operation goes through finance see what I'm getting at I don't I don't either office I don't either day by day operation daybyday operation goes through finance somebody comes in here and wants a plumbing license or inspected, it goes through that office. He does not involve the go any correct office and that wouldn't change

what I'm argument right here is that I'm taking it out of the clerk's office and that's not a valid argument. That's what I'm trying to get at. Well, I'll leave it at that. You go ahead and do your thing, Rich. So, do Rich Let do his and then He did his. That's why he went first. You done with yours?

He went first. Um, okay. So, I was going to read this, but the funny thing is Becky actually I hate to read that, but I I put it all together and I took out all the bad words. So, I feel like I still want to read it, but Becky actually touched on at least 50% of what I what I was going to write here. So, um let me read [clears throat] it. Before we get into opinions, I want to start with some factual correction because accuracy matters. The agenda states the proposal would return inspection services to the electric department. That is not correct. Inspection services in the city has never been under the electric department. Historically, they reported directly to the mayor's office. During this administration and with some extensive talks with Commissioner Stephanelli, um where did I say? Um I agreed to move them under the accounts and finance commissioner at least functionally because that department already manages the building permit process, plan review fees, compliance tracking and records. So keep in mind they are still not in the ordinance of the finance commissioner. They just happen to be in that department they work with the most. Also, the words plumbing inspector do appear in the street commissioner ordinance, but they don't report to him what it says. And I quote, "Of all ordinances, resolutions, rules, and regulations pertaining to the water department, the the sewer department and the street department and the plumbing inspector and the commissioner may prescribe and enforce any other rules and regulations in order to work with towards the efficient and economical management of the department not in conflict with conflict with any law, ordinance or resolution. So to be clear, this proposal is not a return to a previous structure. It would be new and unprecedented change. What inspectors actually do? It's also important to clearly define the roles of our inspectors. Building, plumbing, and electrical inspectors oversee private property construction. They enforce building codes, electric codes, plumbing codes, and permit compliance. They do not inspect city-owned electric infrastructure. They do not inspect substations, transmission lines, or municipal electrical systems. They do not oversee electric department operations. The electric department's work and the inspector's work operate in entirely different spheres. Because of that, placing inspectors under the

electric department does not improve oversight, efficiency, or compliance, and it raises legitimate concerns about independence and organizational alignment. addressing the experience argument. There's also been an argument made that this change is justified based on personal construction and building and trades experience of our electric commissioner having not x amount of defined years experience but more years of experience than another council has been alive. I find that to be more of an attack on someone's age than their actual knowledge. Experience absolutely does have value. But inspection oversight is not governed by the tenure alone. It is governed by code enforcement principles, administrative controls, permitting workflows, legal defensibility and independence from operational departments. There are nationally recognized qualifications that exist specifically to define competency in construction management and inspection oversight and including and I got these from Google and chat GPT. Uh first one certified construction manager CCM by the way super impressive uh certification very specific though. Next one, project management professional, PMP, ICC building and electrical inspector cert certification, certified building official, CBO, and professional engineer. Interestingly enough, if you looked at how these were ranked, uh Google even put uh PMP on top, which is interesting because we have somebody up at this uh on this council that has one of those, right? That happens to be me. So I I I actually think, believe it or not, Google has it wrong. C CCM is probably way more than the PMP, but I'm not going to argue with Google if it's saying I know what I'm talking about. But that's all right. That said, that said, this is not about credentials or personalities. It's about structure, precedent, and sound governance. Competence. This is where the real crux of everything should lie. Competence is a hard thing to try to ever guarantee with elected officials, but our last person in the role had a high very high degree of competence in this area. I even had this written before I knew you'd be in the audience. In fact, I

think he did a pretty good job. In almost the seven years I've been on the council, we really had only one major thing messed up with the building inspection related stuff. At least to the point where we had to issue out a settlement. Here's the funny thing. Based on the complications of the circumstances, I don't even blame the past commissioner for those errors. I mean, I would prefer to have have him perhaps handle it a little differently or a little better, but I can't complain. He saw an issue and he did a lot of work in the clerk's office to fix the issue from ever being able to happen again. Bravo. I say this because when that air happened, no other commissioner came in and said, "Hey, because of that mistake, I want to take charge of the inspectors." Now, flash forward to our new commissioner. He has not had any issues with any building permits or inspectors in the 10 months he's been doing the job. In fact, he's worked extra hard to make changes to fix things for even better as you could see by the very long detailed explanation that we had on the screen here. Um, so my point is he has done a lot of efforts and work to try to improve the process and this is before items have even become an issue. So to me that's demonstrated more than adequate competence to not make a change to how this is handled currently where inspectors should report. So this decision should be straightforward. We can leave inspectors where they are integrated with the permitting and finance functions that are already support their work or if a change is truly necessary, return to the structure that has existed for decades, maybe even a hundred years with inspectors reporting to the mayor's office, which they technically do now. What does not make any sense in moving inspectors under department they do not inspect, they do not support, and whose operational responsibilities are unrelated to private construction compliance. That approach does not align with best practices and does not improve accountability. Closing. For those reasons, I do not support moving the inspection services under the electric department. On top of that, you'd be separating it from the plumbing anyways. I believe the current structure works. And if this body believes a change must be made, the only historical, accurate, and logically consistent alternative is returning inspection oversight to the mayor's office. This decision should be

based on facts, function, and governance, not disagreements between departments. So, that's my two cents. So, I think everybody's had a chance to talk once. Does somebody else want to chat again? Good. I'd like to make a motion to pass ordinance number 137-10526. There's a motion to pass it. Is there a second? I'll second. But can I I guess I want to talk again, but can I encourage Commissioner Baldridge and Colin to work together because I think that [clears throat] Colinin does bring a lot to table with recordkeeping and administrative functions. And I don't when I'm doing this I'm not expecting those functions to leave the oversight of Austin. So you there you go.

Let me answer let me answer your first question. So your first question is um can you still talk about after emotions are made? This came up last time. Technically yes because you're supposed to have a a closed debate if you if somebody still wanted motion. Correct. You second the motion. So I don't know why you seconded. No, I I screwed. But technically, [laughter] if the two get seconded and you still had um a supermajority that still wants to talk about it, you can still discuss. You could still discuss it. So So you made the motion, you've second it and I want to thank you because that was a thing that I kind of got reinfor and it seemed like I did something wrong and I even I didn't.

So let So let me explain. If you Okay, let me back up on this. If you look at Pure Robert's rules of order, Pure Robert rules of order do say that you make a motion and you make a second and then you debate the item. That is not our standard practice here. Our standard practice is that we debate the item, talk about it and stuff like that and then when action's ready, we make a motion. So that's why if somebody still makes a motion and the majority still wants to talk about it, you have that right. So there's a motion, there's a second, but if there's something that anybody else wants to add on, you absolutely can do that until a motion is made to close the debate. I will add I I appreciate your sentiments. Um all I'm saying is I will provide uh I will assist with the recordkeeping uh the tech technological aspect of it. But as far as actually uh enforcement,

I'm I'm not part of that anymore. That's that's that's Rich's obligation. So I I'm you know uh if I if I have the power you know I I'll deal with the with the you know the political possible political push back but I'm removing myself from that um if if I don't have this power and that will be Rich's uh burden to bear but I will certainly help him actually get the stuff done. And that was kind of why I was like I don't know why you're com oh no against it because quite honestly it's a headache. So,

well, it's yes, it's it's not something anybody should envy. Um, but I will certainly assist Rich Rich with um um the administrative portions of it, but I'm not actually going to and I appreciate that as [clears throat] well. Okay. And I'd like to do is work together. So, if we actually vote against this, you're still taking care of the finance. When it actually comes to an issue, Rich will take over. I'm I'm helping Rich with the paperwork. I'm not helping him with enforcement. That's that's that's as far as like recordeping accepting permit just like the plumbing in the water. The permits will still be issued here at city hall. That's not changing. That's what I was trying to get to.

Okay. So, if we vote no, it stays the same. So, there's a motion to second, but is there any more I want to go to the roll call in case anybody has anything else they want to say about it yet? No, that's it. Okay. Again, I I I've read my long thing about it. um what it is. I guess people will will decide. I don't like the idea of separating comm uh uh department roles or anything like that. I don't see the value of it, but that's what it is. There's a if there's no other comments, there is a motion in a second. Can I get a roll call, please? Baldridge. Hi. Colin, no. McDermott. No, stays the same. Moy, you still get it. And Curran,

no. Okay. stays the way it is until further notice. You still All right. B. Discussion and possible action on Culver under Edhand Highway and installation of new pipe at Manhole Outlet. Mcderman. Okay. We discussed this at the last council meeting. Um we were asking if it's an emergency or not. Um I talked to Ross. You claim it is significant emergency. Um, we have uh I guess Dan left, didn't he? We have Poolhore with a bid. Correct. Correct.

And um we'd like to get that approved. Do I need to uh Well, we'll go around. Balders, do you have anything? Okay. Uh I think we went through this not long ago. Uh something to go out with the pool. I I believe that the union probably should have their part in this. I think that we have a few few weeks at least. I have talked to Ross as well and uh I believe we have time to put this out to bid. Okay. I don't I don't know enough about it. Can you remind me I think I asked last meeting what is the threshold for bid? 20. 20. Okay. 20.

Um since I have you here, Ross, little bit of conflict for what I just heard between both of them. I and we haven't talked about this. is how how critical do we have the action to move that pipe has failed okay now whether or not it's going to affect the road tomorrow or in two months that's impossible to say but it's imper it's going to happen it has failed the pipe has failed so um there's potential for further collapse there's a potential for you know not getting the full section of flow through it so there's potential for flooding upstream repair I'm not saying that we call it to get here tonight

I fix that. But if it is a bid process, you're talking potentially months to where now we're into the spring before this is fixed and having a lot of storm water going through that pipe. I I would worry about that. And so because it's not this isn't a project to add something new um because it's a want developing something I believe that because it has failed it has potential to get worse that time is time is of the essence okay where it's it's a repair it's not it's not a project to build something new or like I said develop something is to fix something that's broken the failure f further is imminent got it um

my opinion means anything but It needs to be fixed as soon as Okay. Has anybody reached out to because again I didn't do any research on this but has anybody reached out to the county to see if they had anything that they would pay a portion of it? It is not a county. It is within the corporate limits of the city. So it is fully so we're fully responsible for it and it's imminent in that case. Um I don't know what everybody thinks. I mean I think we we've done our due diligence. We asked the questions. Um the question do we have an amount that needs to be discussed? Uh I can't remember what it was. It was over the It was over the uh 20,000. That's why it needs to get a vote. [clears throat] It was 35, but says that's on the high end. High in case I think I remember that.

So time materials, right? So it be max of 35,000. Okay. All right. Well, I think we've asked the questions. We we found out that the thing is imminent. Um, I I agree that if if you would have said we probably got six months to a year, maybe we put it out to bid, but I think when things are like this, my thoughts are we probably should just go ahead and approve it and get it before we get a collapse on a road.

All right. Anybody else have any open discussion? Right. If you want to make a motion to whatever. I make a motion that we uh go for a bid with Puhar on the um ED highway installation of a new pipe and manhole at the manhole outlet at a cost of a maximum of 35,000 maybe. Matt. Yeah. Just to clarify, approve the bid. Approve. Approve the bid of that. Okay, got it. Uh can I get a second? I'll second. Roll call, please. Waldridge. No. Colin. Hi, McDermott. I Moy I Curran I

C discussion and possible action on purchase of speed trailer me message board Moy.

Ah so we talked about this before. I have two quotes here but I'm now I'm wondering if I need to put it up fid or so there are two different companies to replace our speed trailer. The one that would be ideal would be the stalker radar radar. Um, it has the message sign if you recall that we could put more messages on there besides just slow down. We could customize it. But the really nice thing about it is that it does collect data. So if someone says, "People are speeding by my house." Now we have the ability to bring a speed trailer there and actually collect data. How many cars go by the house? How many cars are speeding?

Too rich. So, the stalker is the better of the two. It's just over $21,000. Um, but there is an alternative quote. Is there three that you need for anything over 20,000? No. No. Okay. You're just supposed to advertise it for bids, Hillary. But, but you can agree as a council, twothirds of the council can agree to move forward without going through that procedure. So, Okay. You have anything We'll come back. Baldridge call.

Um I mean this is replacing an existing one. Correct. If you recall, um I did bring up that the existing one is no longer working and it was the motherboard that had gone out and to replace it, it was ridiculous and not worth. We just have the one be Mike, we just have the one-speed trailer, right? that is not that's not working. We have one that's not working, one that is working. Do we have one that No. Okay. Mhm. And the idea was that this could also be used in other departments like when we had the bridge closed. Board. Did you have anything in there?

She's referring to anformational board. Mhm. So, you're looking you want to get the the 21,000, not the 1891. This is Yes. So, is there a better Well, it looks like with the um warning lights, which is the other bid. It does have a subscription service that you have to and it's a two-year requirement. Which one has a subscription service? Warning lights. The the expensive one or the cheap? The cheaper one. Oh, you got to pay. You're going to hit us on subscriptions anyways. Okay. All right. Was this something that was um requested as part of like the annual like uh appropriations if if they have money in their budget is what you're asking? Yes, there is money in the budget.

Okay. Matt, do you have anything yet? No. Okay. That be for the stock. Anybody else? If nobody has anything else, if you want to make a motion for action. I want to make a motion to purchase the speed trailer from Stalker Radar at $21,167. I'll second that motion. Roll call, please. Baldrich. Hi, Curran. Hi. Oh, sorry. Colin, I McDermott. Hi, Moy. Hi. Sorry. All right. Discussion and possible action to approve Gerard variance request. Cullinin. Uh Pat, you drew the ordinance for this. So

correct. So you approved the plan commission's recommendation to grant the Gerard variance request at the last meeting. Uh it takes the maximum height of a building in that zoning district from 15 ft to 21 ft. 22 I think 22. Um and this ordinance formalizes that decision you made at the last meeting. Okay. Do you have anything else you want to add to that? Mo. Nope. nothing bridge. No,

I think we already talked about it last time and we had a recommendation for it. So, if there's no other further discussion, if I can get a motion to approve the uh variance request. Um this is um I will motion that we approve ordinance number 13 05-01 0525 an ordinance granting a request for variance filed by Samantha Gerard. Second roll call please. Baldridge. Hi. Col uh Curran Cullinin, sorry. Colin, I McDermott I Moy I Curran I

E discussion and possible action to approve Fielder/Walter variance request. Cullinin. Pitch it back to Pat. Same thing. Um you considered the plan commission's recommendation at your last meeting and agreed to grant the variance request that the Fedler Walter parties had filed. This actually will formalize the approval of a 35 foot driveway uh which is in in excess of the 25 or 24 foot standard in that zoning district. And the driveway already exists just to let you know. It was constructed by the contractor without knowing anything about it. It was just a mistake. [cough and clears throat] Okay.

And you approved this at the last meeting again. I don't have anything. No. Well, McDermott Baldridge. No, I'm good. Same as before. Uh, no issues here. We get a motion to approve. I will motion that we approve ordinance number 136-0525, an ordinance granting a request for variance filed by Robert J. uh, Feedler and Karen Walter. Second. Roll call, please. Baldrich. Hi. Cullinin. Hi. McDermott. Hi. Moy. Hi. Currin. Hi. 10. New business a discussion and possible action to move the mayor's report to the beginning of the meeting moiled.

All right. So this is why I'm bringing it here as discussion. Um I first want to address my um response to last meeting's mayor's report and it was not how I perceive that I want to handle myself, how I think I represent the city very well. It it did get under my skin. I did get upset. I had a very human emotional response. But that's not fair and that's not how I want to go forward. The reason I put the item on the agenda is not for retaliation or any purpose other than that, but to try and bring down the temperature on our meetings. Obviously, this isn't working. This is statistically we have the most fights towards the end of the meeting regarding the reports. So, I don't want to point fingers and say it's one person's problem or the other, but did you know, this may seem like I'm like all over the place, but did you know there's Robert rules of order debates? And I actually found this out that there is somebody in that I'm very close with that is actually a judge of it. And part of what I'm getting at is we can bring down the temperature of our meetings without getting ugly and nasty if we use a point of order correctly and all of that. So the reason I'm asking to move the mayor's report is that it's not uncommon that a mayor's report is first because he is the chair of the meeting. He does represent the council and it gives him the opportunity to make the opening remarks and set the tone for the rest of the meeting and announce the events that are happening publicly. First, um Galveston, Texas is one of the um cities that is mo most often um commented or looked at as a successful commissioner form of government and that is how they operate their meetings. So, that was why I wanted to bring it to you guys' attention and maybe talk about it, discuss it, see if we want to try something different. It's obviously reversible, but something that maybe we can try and work together to do better.

Okay. I think it's a good idea. It worked today. It worked. You're fine. Right. Alders, I think at the beginning of meeting people are paying more attention than at any point in the meeting unless there's something crazy going on. So, I think that it would be beneficial to the city and the citizens to have the mayor give you an announcement at the very beginning of the meeting to tell you what's going on in the town. [clears throat]

I I I'll start out by saying this. Um, at the last meeting, the mayor did take a bit of a a dig at the beginning of his mayor's report, and I think we should agree to not insert any politics whatsoever into our reports and just leave them totally nonpartisan. I think that's a good rule to follow and leave the fighting over, you know, whatever else for the actual agenda items. Um, but I I really don't see I Well, first of all, beyond that, I I also think that this is just kind of a and I appreciate what you had to say about it, but I just I think this is just a a wild thing to even be discussing. Um I it's as we kind of said with changing the ordinance um on uh on the inspectors um I just I think when we have all these changes just kind of off-the- cuff kind of you know just spur the moment kind of whatever maybe spur the moment is not the right phrase but it it just it just feels like we we make a lot of changes just to make changes because we feel like, you know, something in the city is not working the way that is supposed to or we don't like the way the city's being run and so we're just trying to force a round peg into a square hole. Like I I I don't know. I I really think the willingness to change things so freely, as I kind of said with the inspector's thing, is kind of just a a sign of dysfunction that it has it it started well before us. Um, and like I said, I I will admit freely my part uh in in getting uh some of that assumption into city hall, and I apologize for

that. But I I really just I really don't think that this is even something that we should be discussing. And I I would also ask too, um if if we move the mayor's report to the beginning to set the tone and people listen most at the beginning, why wouldn't we also move the commissioner's reports to the beginning of the meeting? I I just I feel like that would be consistent. Do Do you want to ask me or is it Oh, I'm sorry. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I did research [clears throat] into that, too. So, it wasn't like it was like a thoughtless process. I um originally proposed this because the mayor does hold a different role than the rest of us. He is the chair. He doesn't have a direct department really like we do to offerformational updates. And partially, I was also being selfish because I like I do the think first responder every other meeting. And I I think that that's a good positive way to end. So if we have a positive report in the beginning and a positive report in the end, that was my intention. So and the reason why I put it on the agenda is because agenda changes have to be approved by council. We can't in the latter. No, I that is true. I just I wish it was wasn't something we were discussing. But is there anything else?

No, that's it. Okay. So couple things. Um first of all um your explanation was very eloquent. I I do that that is a wonderful sentiment to be able to set the tone and it for the for the meeting. I I actually think that's a a wonderful idea. It really is. I'm not even joking about that. However, I mean this is on the agenda the the the meeting after you said I want it's you're on video saying I want the last word next meeting. Well, no, that I don't want you to have the final word, but that being said, I apologize.

I know you did. I acknowledge that. But just so keep that in mind. So, I always take that with with a grain of salt with that. The other thing with this is uh they looked into it how far this went back. For all I know, it could have been all the way back to, you know, 1916 for all I know. Uh it's been this way for a while. I don't think there's a problem with having the mayor's report at the end. Um the irony is um if if you if you want the mayor's report up front just so I can talk about the general thing, set the tone and stuff like that. Um I think you forget that the council members can add things. So I can simply just put right after commissioner reports mayor's final comments if I wanted one. I have that right to do that. So, so if you're if you're doing it for that reason, uh it's, you know, you're you're not going to win in that regards if that's what you're trying to do. Uh but if if it's for your legitimate reasons, um I I think that actually is a wonderful sentiment. And you are right. I mean, look at the time right now. It's 8:25 at night. The other thing I wanted to point out, you says, uh I think somebody was it that said I think see it worked really well for lowering the temperature today because I talked first. We didn't even start our council meeting for an hour and a half because we had to go into close session and and and handle some business that is not pleasurable. So I don't know if I agree with that that that sentiment there. Um but again it's it's a wellthoughtout argument. So um

I guess do we want to try it because this clearly what has been happening is not working. I think we all can kind of agree to that. The other argument, and I will say this with Commissioner Cullinin's comments, um I think sometimes forget people forget maybe some of the other previous commissioner points and uh reports in the past, have had some crazy things in there that I think that they've stated things that aren't true or whatever. I I just sit here and listen, let them listen and do whatever they say. So, I think when it comes to your individual report time, you are authorized to say whatever it is you want to say. Um this is what I believe. So, it's called freedom of speech. So, um, does anybody else say anything to that?

Regardless of where this goes, I just want to I I do want to commend Commissioner Moy for for your apology about, you know, your response to that. I I I think we could all benefit from, you know, more apologies and, you know, whatever. And I think that took a lot of uh courage to to do that. So, I just want to give you a I wanted to apologize the hour after I felt really bad, but [laughter] All right. Any other comments on this topic? Well, I think it's a good idea. That way, you can bring up uh current events that are coming up right off the bat. As I said, pretty good. There's not terrible ideas, and you do get people's attention a little earlier in the thing. I just think the tradition has been

I I I think it's a weird time to be asking to to move that right after we just had something that was strange about that. The timing is strange. I don't think there's a need a strong enough need to change tradition just yet, but the council can decide that. So, Anything else? I'll make a motion to move the mayor's report. Yeah, we're spec Can I ask where specifically do you want? I guess we need to have a little discussion. What does that What does that mean? Like right after before pledge allegiance we start talking. Should we do it after public comment? You could do it before. It doesn't really be that's why I say be be specific was when you say beginning a meeting. I guess you could do it immediately. As soon as you can do it is after roll call, right? to verify that you have a legitimate

and that's why I wanted I think so too. I think the place to put it would be between the pledge and the public comment. Okay. Okay. Keep the public comments about items on the agenda. So is your motion to move the mayor's report immediately after pledge of allegiance. Sure. And I'll second that. That's good. Okay. Roll call, please. Waldrich. Hi. Cullinin. No. McDermott. Hi. Moy. Hi. Currin. No. That's where I'll be giving the reports I guess. All right. B discussion and possible action on raffle license approval. Colin.

Yeah. So, um I guess maybe Jen can speak more to this, but I did write down a few things. There's a few organizations that do raffles. The three that I saw were the American Legion, IVCC, and the Dickinson House Foundation. And um they're seeking raffle licenses for the upcoming year or for this year. It's just it's just an annual renewal that we do. We are not having that as well. I is we are yeah that's all that's been submitted okay so far it's sorry my apologies tag days are the ones that have a certain time frame that they're supposed to apply for my apologies there's no set specific time on this all right my bad all right go anything else uh Moy I I don't have anything to add

I have nothing for neither do I think they're great uh great organizations and as more uh I don't know if there's ever and a nonprofit that we've denied the the ability to do a raffle license. So, I think it's great. Uh, if we can get a motion to approve the raffle licenses. I will motion that we approve um the attached uh raffle licenses. Second. Roll call, please. Baldrich. Hi. Cullen. Hi. McDermott. I. Moy. I. Currant. I. C. Discussion and possible action on creating an ordinance to place all prior executive session minutes in online commissioner files, giving easier access and review prior to voting. uh approval I think supposed to say. Baldridge

uh as I stated earlier there's a number of uh past minutes that need to be reviewed and the only possibility we have to review them is during business hours which my opinion are like banker's hours. I don't have banker's hours and I am gone from 4 to 5:30 in the morning until after 5:00 pm every night. I don't really see a problem with putting these on our private server here so that we could read them at our availability instead of coming here and having to be here during that exact time. We'll go around the room. Colin,

so I guess what I would say regarding this and then I have a potential compromise on this if if we need to do that because of the banker's hours. What I would say is um I'm not familiar of with any board, at least the one board I've served on, I guess. Uh I'm not familiar with any board um that actually gives members uh copies of the closed session minutes to just have and possess. Uh when I was on the library board um I mean I was a secretary um I produced the close session record or the close session minutes and then they were put away in a lock box. Uh and you could come in and you could review them at your discretion but that was really it. and and I really think that is best practice. Um, we've talked before about things um, we've talked before about things uh, being talked about outside of close session that shouldn't have been talked about outside of close session. Uh, that's what it is. is I mean uh but I even if we can't stop people necessarily from discussing things that happen in close session out of close session I I would say it's probably beneficial um if that person doesn't have like an actual official document to corroborate what they're telling somebody. Um so uh for that reason um I'm just against it and those reasons I'm against it. Um, and I I I really I'm really totally against it. But I mean, if this is going to end up being passed, what I would be more comfortable with is if if it's if if it's this set of minutes, the the minutes that are listed here, October 6th, October 20th, November 17th, December 1st, December 15th, executive sessions. Um, and I'll take the blame for October 6th, October 20th, November

17th, and December 1st. I didn't communicate clearly enough to Jen uh when Jen took the role of city clerk uh that we the kind of practice is that we review those at the following meeting and then we approve them. That's my fault. I'll own up to that. Um but what I would suggest is if we are going to do this, I would suggest that we do it for just this set of minutes and then moving forward we don't do it at all and it's still paper copies in the office given to you before a council meeting for you to read. I just I don't think this is I don't think it's a good idea to have these uh circling out there. That's it. Okay. Mo

I can understand your confidential [clears throat] issues here with some of the topics, but I'm trying I'm trying to rack my brain as something as an alternative. I mean, password protecting it probably wouldn't prevent someone from screenshotting it, but um if someone's that bent on getting the information out there, that's going to happen with their mouth. I would think I'm just I'm I'm interested to see if there's some kind of other ways to do this besides

I feel if somebody wants it out there, they're going to get it out there one way or the other. Um, I don't know if there's any other way to do it.

Okay. Um, so the only part of this I think has has value is the discussion part. Uh, everything else with the action of what to do, I think it is so dangerous I'm surprised it's even on the agenda. I'll echo everything um, Commissioner Cullen said. I've never served on another board that that would allow something like that. Whether it be school board, IVRD, we we we don't do that. There's just Let me explain what closed session minutes are best used for. One, they make a record of the meeting. Great. That doesn't have any value to the public except for usually years later. Every six months, we determine which ones can be released. Matter of fact, next meeting we're going to do that for all of our past ones, right? The only ones that get released are ones that issues are completely no longer anything anything have a factor anymore. Right? So they don't really play a factor into the public for that. The only thing they play a factor to the public is that it is a thing of uh um being being available to everybody that they can see after the fact. So usually any relevant information is is from months to years ago. So they don't have any value that way. The other value that they have is sometimes there's things that we talk about in close session that are relatively detailed and complicated, especially if there's a negotiation deal that's gone back and forth like 10 times and and then there's there's times that we've actually had to go to the minutes to say, "Hey, our first proposal that we did with this back seven months ago, what what did we offer?" So, we we've had to go to the close session minutes for that. Those are the value points of close session minutes. The negative thing if the if the some of these minutes were to get out into the public space, everything that we're talking about here right now, it's all online already. Our open session minutes [snorts] really don't mean anything because people could watch the video tomorrow, today, whatever. I'll give you an example. We are in union negotiations right now, contract negotiations.

If the things that we talked about in our close session about how we're strategizing for, we're talking about, we're trying to negotiate and stuff like that. If that were to fall into the wrong hands, that would have a serious detrimental effect to the taxpayers's resources, right? I mean, our job not only I mean, we all want to make sure our employees are paid well, taken care of well, but we do have a a financial responsibility to look after the taxpayer dollar. And if those if you put something in an online format, you are just opening up a can of worms. So to me, it cannot be an option. Close session minutes always have to be controlled. End of end of discussion. To me, there's this shouldn't even be a discussion. What there should be a discussion for is if we have council members that cannot find an adequate time to be able to come in to review them in person, that is a problem. We have to find a way to be able to to to to work around that. Right. I don't know what that answer is. I do think that somebody should be able to find time within the next couple weeks, maybe maybe if they any delay next couple months to find some time to come into this office or building during the working hours. If that can't be, we can talk about other options. I don't know what that's going to be. I don't know if that means putting it on a private server in the in the room there that's specially password protected to look at. I I don't know what the answer is. We can definitely discuss that. We can discuss that. But to me, the option cannot be for close session minutes to ever be on an online location to where somebody could take them out of city hall. I I don't I don't even know, Pat, do you have any legal thought process on that?

This would completely violate best practices. I I just don't think it's something you should do. You're inviting trouble. It's way too accessible to the general public if somebody can get into somebody's computer and take a look at these. No, I just don't think this is a good idea. And I'm not talking about the things I would definitely recommend against.

Yeah, I'm not talking about the things that we might squabble about and people just want to hear a gossip aspect. I'm talking about the things that have true financial liability to the city if people if if it was available to the public. We can't have that. I think the idea of having I mean if if the time making the time or having the time period is an issue if we could have some sort of and I'm sure there's a way to do it to severely lock down a computer and require a user ID and password to access that computer so we can audit who who logs into that computer in city hall. I think that's a good idea. Well, if we're already coming to city hall then

yeah but everybody has a key. Everybody has a key because then we know then we know that that person only accessed them at city hall and we know when who's accessing them. Believe that's what I asked you guys the last time when we initially started this conversation. You said it was impossible or something. Oh, I don't an option then.

I I I don't want to say anything's ever impossible. I just I don't know of a proper way because like you said, somebody could take a screenshot of it and Mac, I don't know if I agree with that. I [clears throat] I agree with what Cullinin said. There's a difference because again, I'm not going to blame anybody, but we've had problems in the past where there's been certain items that have been talked about in a very secure location that were very important and they have gotten out of here. That's caused that's caused problems. I I can't hold uh a council member liable for I I I can't I can't charge them with anything. I can't if they do that. But there is something to say if you have the document to show with it. There's one thing about hearsay and there's another thing with saying, "Yeah, no, look, I got the minutes right here. There's what it said."

Rich, I think what I was talking about is if they were placed on the internet in a folder or something like that. Like if they're on the internet, there's really very little way that we could control them because you could just anybody could just say, "Hey, look at this." You know, whatever. But if but if we required that somebody be physically in city hall and somebody log in using a user ID and password that specifically only goes to them and that computer can't upload anything to the internet. I I mean I think that would be an agreeable solution. It's better. I still don't think it's I mean I mean if you can't trust somebody you can't trust them. They could take out maybe have a pair of medic glasses on and take pictures of the camera of that television. Yeah, you could do that to uh if somebody wants to come in here and take information and they're just that much of a bad person.

Yeah, that is true. That is a fair point. Your charm never ceases to amaze me. I'm sorry. Would it be possible that we could do where um if you can't make it say, "Hey, would you be possible for me to come in on a Saturday?" I would not be against that coming in for a couple hours so somebody could come in and and review. I I don't have a problem with that.

I think something like that is makes more sense because the the thing that's crazy about executive session, look at this. We we haven't approved the ones from the 6th, the 20th, the 17th. We have like five of them here that haven't been approved, it doesn't affect anything because they're not released to the public until six months after. So to me, if they have to get delayed, executive session doesn't doesn't mean that much to me. As I as I said, the biggest value of them is transparency after the fact. And if we need to review something because something happened so many months ago that we're not aware of. I I just don't think I I to me it's not even a discussion to have in an online open access thing. It cannot be if there's a way to lock it down or like I said if maybe only if they can only be here once a month even if they got to be on the weekend or something like that. We got to make special accommodations for that. We do need to make accommodations for the council members because people have lives and jobs and responsibilities. Um but so I I think the discussion should continue and trying to find a more appropriate way to to accommodate that.

Can I make a recommendation or an ask? I'm not directing you what to do, but tech guru Austin Cullen, can you look into some alternative solutions and have them prepared by the next meeting so this just doesn't keep going? I I can I I think just off the cuff I I can and I will, but I think off the cuff, if I had to guess, the best solution would probably be what I suggested, which is having a password protected uh computer. Um you know, maybe maybe you put it in a place that is recorded or something like that where you know, you can see the person accessing it, whatever. But I really think that's going to be your only option. Um but I can research it. Could you look into that little Mission Impossible tape that says it's self-destruct after?

Yeah, I can look into it. That's a reference, but actually I have to get into contact with connecting point anyway. So, okay. So, do I need to make a motion to do anything or are we just going to leave it open-ended? I mean, the only action on here is if you're going to do the action that that basically Baldridge recommended or whatever. I think what we should do is continue the discussion to look for a more appropriate way to solve this without putting the city in peril. I know that sounds overly dramatic, but I do truly believe if some of these executive session minutes were to get out there there's a true financial I don't think Pat, you wouldn't even argue with what I'm saying, right? There's a true financial liability. A huge financial liability.

Yeah. I I would definitely not recommend you put these online and available to look at from afar. No. Good. Okay. So, I would that's what I would recommend. Uh we continue to look at alternative solutions that that can cater to the council members a little better. Yeah. Because right now, again, we got five of them that aren't approved. The world ain't burning down, but we didn't have them until recently. Say again, they haven't been adding up on there. Those were all put together pretty much at the same time, right? All one wasn't a I'll be honest. I look at the executive [clears throat] session before we're going to release them because that's when the important time is.

Yeah. No, everything um all of them minus uh the last one on there which was what December 15th or whatever. Um yeah, they're they're I guess you could say. Yeah, they've accured over time, but I will take responsibility for that. I I didn't communicate clearly enough the expectation to our new city clerk that that's what we do after each meeting. So, I'm not looking to place blame. I'm only looking for solution areas to clear that up and be able to move on. Okay. So, is the discussion what I'm hearing is that we're going to look for more alternative solutions. I make a motion that we look into more alternatives and because we all agree that we do have to make things available at commissioners schedules when they're available.

Right. Okay. All right. Uh if there's if there's no other discussion, uh we'll move on. D discussion on central locations. where city employees original records and certifications are maintained current. All right. So, I put this on here. I know I feel like I shouldn't have even had to put it on here, but I just want to make sure that this is clear because there has been some issues lately. Um, it's been brought to my attention that not all records are are being maintained at city hall. My understanding is, and I think our chief of police already walked off is over there. There's only two two Hey, how are you? Thanks, Chief. There's only two things that uh two locations where employee records are stored. Uh one is city hall here. Their employee record has everything in it. Their pay records, their their uh discipline reports, evaluations, certifications, qualifications, everything. The only one that's a little different is police because police are under a very special program. How they do their evaluation systems and stuff like that. Even though their pay records might be down here, their evaluation cycle, all that stuff is under a lock and key at the police department. So, I don't think there's an issue if you have copies locally at the different departments, but there needs to be the the original everything copy needs to be maintained here at city hall. So, I thought I'd go around the room and see if somebody thinks different than that understanding. Um, Colin,

I I would agree with your assessment on that. Okay. To reiterate, you're saying with the exception of just the police, the police department, do you do realize like fire has monthly training certific but I don't know I don't know if we keep uh fire people as like employee records. So we don't have employee records on them. So and and with ambulance like their paramedics license and stuff [clears throat] like that since that's something that's transferable. I would say the full-time employees paramedics we should because we have a file on them here. We probably need to have their copies of everything here, but everybody else if they're not full-time employees.

I haven't had an opportunity because this was added as one of the last agenda items, but I haven't I had an opportunity to talk about it with Margus. I have not had an opportunity to talk with Pete or Okay. Well, again, this this is an action. This is just a discussion. Right. So, Right. So, but you agree with So, I'm not sure what the ambulance is doing right now. Okay. Well, if you'd like to check on that because my thought process is the full-time employee stuff, everything would be kept here, but if they but yeah, if you got a whole bunch of part-time employees and stuff like that, we don't keep a record for them. Okay, McDermott, I agree with Mo. Okay, Baldridge.

I I don't know what records you're looking for. My my understanding is that the uh personnel records and everything are already kept in the city hall's offices here. Um I I kind of think I know what you're talking about. And those are some uh apprenticeship records and those are kept with the apprenticeship school. So we didn't the city of Ogby has ever had the acquired.

Well, I thought I thought when we got the certifications, we kept them here. I mean, for I I think of it is for anything like liability purpose. Like for example, Dan's probably I don't even know if Dan's still in the room anymore. Uh they have some different certifications that they have for like spraying [clears throat] uh I can't remember if it's pest control or weed control or something like that, but we keep those kinds of things down there because we need to maintain them. We might get a call from the insurance thing that says, "Hey, can you update us?" We don't have to go look for it or hunt for it. We have it at city hall for those records. So, um same with any certification. The moment we get them, my thought process is they should not be stuck in a drawer somewhere at a department level. If they want to keep a copy there, that's fine. But the original everything needs to be at city hall so we don't have a problem with an employee coming down and saying, "Hey, I'd like to look in my employee file and get my whatever." And we go, we don't have it. It's that's maintained somewhere else. I I we shouldn't have those conversations. Just want to make sure everybody's under that same mentality. if there's still some discussion. I

I think I need to just discuss because they do have significant amount of certified part-time and I think for liability purposes, I'm sure their certification is somewhere on file. I don't know what their record management system is for the ambulance. Okay. And and I'm not sure either. I only talked to the chief about it just to make sure I I knew that they had a special how they did their evaluation stuff. So, okay. So, we'll look into that one, but as far as everybody else, everybody's on board with the idea uh that city hall is where they keep that stuff. Okay. Uh, is there anything else on that topic? All right, moving on. Number 11, public comment on any topic. We got a long wait to get here.

Some of you are aware, I'm Kathy Nova, and some of you are aware that Crockett Street has a horrible turnaround. um car. It's a dead end street and it's a turnaround at the end and the big trucks like UPS and F Express have difficulty. But today I witnessed the ambulance. They picked someone up. I don't know if they were in the car. They were down on my street, but they went down and they could not turn around. They went back and forth, back and forth. Finally, they decided they just would back out of the street. So, I think the city needs to take a look at see if they can widen that somehow so the bigger trucks can get turned around.

The interesting thing is I remember us talking about this like six, seven years ago. And I think at the time the question was, can we put a sign up that says no big truck because you don't want them have to turn around but an ambulance obviously they got to get down there. So that might change up the conversation a bit. Yeah. He tried using my neighbor's driveway runs and couldn't get turned around and finally he just backed up and he backed all the way down the street. So that That's That's serious. It ends in a circle thing, doesn't it? It's It's not much of one.

It's not much of a circle. And if you need to if I have property, I need to donate some property to get that larger. It's just It's an issue. I know my neighbor's mailbox was knocked down by one of the big trucks. I put cones in my driveway because I invested a lot of money in concrete and I had a UPS truck back up and the curb. I had another guy with a gooseeneck [clears throat] um hitch drive in and scratch the, you know, the concrete. So, I'm trying to protect my driveway because that's the first place that they think about turning around is. But, um, when I saw the ambulance today, I thought this has to be addressed. I appreciate that. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other public comment on any topic? Number 12, commissioner reports. Commissioner Cullin.

Oh, boy. Let me find it. Uh, okay. Uh so that portal that I've been talking about uh the new we're replacing uh payment service network um this is I I believe part of the civic systems it's an extension of civic systems um which is we made a year and some change ago made a a large purchase for a lot of our uh bookkeeping software blah blah blah and this is part of it. Um the portal rolled out Friday of last week. I was informed today that we have 55 people signed up uh for the portal, which is actually very good, I think, for Friday of last week. I'm pretty pleased. Um I want to remind residents that signing up uh for online payments uh made via AC is fee free. Um however, cards at this point in time will incur a charge of uh 3.5%. So, wanted to remind uh people of that. I also, speaking of the new year, um on our website, city council's page has been updated uh for the new year. So, it shows the 2016 calendar, so forth and so on. What you'll notice is that videos are no longer linked there if you ever go there to pull up videos. Um but they are still on our official YouTube channel. All of this year's videos, uh moving forward will be listed on that page. Um, uh, other kind of administrative housekeeping things. I pulled this off the, uh, off the newsletter. So, uh, golf cart stickers expired as of, uh, 1231, uh, December 31st. Uh, you should have received a reminder. If you have any questions, please contact city hall. And the last thing I was kind of showing off, I'm actually genuinely like I I'm very I don't know like that that kind of

techy stuff I was showing earlier actually really for whatever reason like it gets me like really excited. Like I it's it's very like I don't know. It's like the same way I get excited when I go to Staples. Like I I'm kind of kind of a loser in that sense. But uh that stuff really does excite me. So Microsoft 365 working on that. I talked about the building inspections things. Um I also want to keep other records uh on that as well so they're accessible to everybody so you know we're holding each other accountable uh such as rental inspections and other things. Um I also talked about this before but we got a bit sidetracked. I really want to prioritize um digitizing all of our forms. obviously offering a physical copy, but trying to just to digitize, offer a digital option for as much as we do and push people towards that. Um, and so forms specifically, we were talking about like building permit forms, our new civic systems thing, uh, should be able to handle those. Uh, but other forms, even something as, you know, uh, frivolous as a Dickinson house request form, I would love there to be an online option. um that again everything's automated, sends a request, request is reviewed, sends a confirmation email. I would love that um because it just makes everything so much more efficient and so much more streamlined. Uh and so I I feel like a loser in my room at night uh playing around with Microsoft Power Automate, but I'm actually kind of having a little bit of fun with it. So um I look forward to seeing uh what it can do once we get Microsoft totally rolled up. So, uh, that's all I have for tonight.

Thank you. Wish you well.

Okay. For the fire department, they had 14 calls total, which included five vehicle accidents, two activated alarms, two life assist, one auto aid, one police assist, one structure fire, one hazmat call, one wire down. So, for 2025, there were a total of 224 calls that the fire department responded to. And I just want to point out that this is a 16% increase from 2024. So, they are getting more calls. So, if you've ever felt the call to action, please consider the fire department [clears throat] and joining them. Applications can be picked up there. Um, and then I I have the ambulance report as well, which has 63 total calls, five transfers, one ALS intercept, two mutual aids, 55 all city and district calls encompassing. And I did want to take a moment because the district has asked us to start breaking out these calls. They want to know how many are happening. In November, they had 60 We had 68 total ambulance calls, but 14 were in the fire protection district. In December, 63 total calls, but four were in the district, just to keep in mind. Um, tonight, I do not have um statistics from the police department, but I'll catch up on them next time.

Thank you, Commissioner McDerman. Okay, the uh dry bridge has been complete. Uh that I want to thank deconstruction. Um they will have to do the black top. Um the wastewater treatment plant is operating pretty good. They're doing good work down there and they're going to do a pretty big pour within the next couple days I believe. That's it. That's all I got. When you said pour, what does that have effect? Not on the roadway, right? Just down there. Cool. Thank you,

Commissioner Baldridge. Uh, as Commissioner Moy has stated, um, the commissioner's reports are, in my my opinion, to give a report of your departments. Uh, I've asked both of my superintendents of their departments to give me an an update uh, every two weeks. And, uh, this is what the electric department has provided. Over the last two weeks, we have received an insur settlement payment of $88,372.14ning storm damage I received in September. We also finished and received the grant from IMEA for $20,2863 which goes towards the P purchase of a variable frequency drive for well pump number three. They have signed up for the new Julie underground rapid response system which will give a more precise response for any underground locate that is called in. We are currently waiting for the additional login credentials for all the other guys. This program was supposed to be 100% in use by January 1st. However, they are way behind in getting each person's credentials sent out. We have been working on getting our electrical system mapped out and installed on the GIS maps which will be once completed have all of our system recorded in one place which will be easily accessible to both all guys working in the field as well as permanent record for the city. This is a work in progress. We had a major incident of wind damage on Sunday, December 28th. A large oak tree was blown over and fell into our main circuit power lines which run down by the alley between Oak Street and Porter Avenue, knocking down the power lines and snapping off a corner pole on Church Street. We called Shar Tree Service to remove the large tree which was laying on both our power lines and a garage on Oak Street so repairs could be made. Power was restored to the affected customers around 7 a.m. If you recall, it was about 50 to 60 mph winds, I believe, that night and they uh it was very cold and they stayed all and got all that. I do appreciate that we have cleaned out all of our electrical appra apparatus that was stored in the Dickinson house basement and have been working on organizing and installing additional shelving at both our landfill

storage building as well as a storage shed behind her shop and getting rid of any junk that has been accumulated through the years when we get the time. Thank you. JP uh from the parks department says that uh the garbage is downtown dog parking disc golf and water street uh they get picked up on weekly rounds. City Hall maintenance and cleaning gets done weekly. Uh he's got BB gun club prep, makeup shoots, and club nights. The Dickinson house has to be maintained weekly to touch up painting, the smell from the traps, new install bathroom, bowling alley maintenance. Uh been working on cleaning up the Dickinson House multiple times a week. Prepped for the 54 or 5480 mound and bases at Gandalfi Diamond. Prep for the new south batting cage post at Gandalfi Diamond. Cut down some large tree branches that fell at Memorial Park. Changed the flags and clips as needed at flag poles. Got the Christmas lights taken down and organized them back into storage. Been painting some garbage cans and uh done some ceiling tile work in the park's office and organized the shop. Starting next week, they're going to do maintenance on all the equipment. It's a late start due to the early snow and start refinishing more Memorial Park sign and Dickens House baseball complex sign. If you notice the one down at Memorial Park, they uh took that down last year and took some time and really made that look nice and it saved the city a lot of money and made it look a lot better for everybody to look at. So, do appreciate all that. That's all I have.

All right. All good stuff. Thank you. Uh mayor's [clears throat] report was already completed. Um so number what I got 13 there. Executive session for collective negotiating matters between the public body and its employees or the representatives or deliberations concerning the salary schedules for one or more classes of employees 5 LCS120/2C2 to discuss the purchase of lease of real estate 5 LCS120C5 the employment compensation discipline performance dismissal specific employees 5 LCS120C1. Uh can I get a motion to go into I'll make a motion to go into executive session. I'll second roll call please. Uh Baldrich. Hi. Cullinin. Hi. McDermott. I Moy I Curran

I I think this is officially the latest time we've started executive session. There's no there's no planned action exe after executive session. Thank you everybody. Have a wonderful night and a happy new year. [clears throat]

I'm throwing That's not great. No cracks. just breaking stuff. No, I said no. No cracks, which would really suck because I don't use this thing that often.

Tony, didn't even know you're going to be here and I said nothing but good things about you. You bet. I might not like you, but you did good. You did good work. That's You did good work. What about your wife? What about your wife?

You did.

I Oh my god. Thank god my wife still there. Oh boy. Back to school tomorrow. All right, we're back in open session. Roll call, please. Baldridge, here. Colin, here. McDermott here. Moy

here. Curran here. Thank you for anybody that's still paying attention. I'm It's probably well past your bedtime. Um that's all we have tonight. Uh number 14 is adjournment. Can I get a motion to adjurnn? I'll make a motion to adjourn. [laughter] Everybody. Roll call, please. Uh Baldridge here. Call it. I. McDermott. I Curran I. We are adjourned. Night night. Night night.