City Council - Regular Meeting

I'm not even going to guess. Sorry. It's not going to be broken.

I don't know.

Contacting server? It says contacting server.

That might be an issue.

That's what I'm asking. I don't know.

I don't know.

No, because I said that I'm going to call it a session down in the conference room.

With how? Without the sun pump. We have a foundation drain. We have a sewer plus a sun pump or something to help it out. I used to like to climb on that. That foundation drain has a lot of water. A lot of water. Excuse me. There's a slope here. That's a lot of water. That's a lot of water. A lot of water. A lot of water.

A lot of water. A lot of water.

Yeah, well, they were figured out, like, you know, understanding the airport. All right, I'm gonna put myself on mute. Okay, thank you. Yeah, let's fill it up here. That's right. Yep.

Okay, after technical difficulty, it's 535, so I'm going to call this meeting to order. Those that would like to participate, please stand for the invocation, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance.

Thank you, Mayor. Father, we come to you tonight in the name of Jesus, asking you to bless our city. Amen. In this time of chaos and things going on in the world, all sorts of things, Lord, we pray for peace over our city and that your will would be accomplished here. So, Father, in John 14, Jesus talks about the promise of the coming of the Holy Spirit. And with that in mind, he says he will be with you and in you. To me, that sounds like there's the tangible touch of God available to us. And so tonight, Lord, I pray that that tangible touch would manifest itself here tonight by the power of the Holy Spirit and that it would be in the form of an expression that the joy of the Lord would move through this place. Lord, I pray that the joy of the Lord would move over those that are standing and seated to my right. I pray that the joy of the Lord would move over those to my left. Lord, I pray that the joy of the Lord would move over those that are seated behind me in this building tonight. Lord, I pray that that joy would move over those that are in the hallway. Lord, I pray that joy would be manifested through our mayor and city council and city clerk. And Lord, I pray that the joy of the Lord would just rise forth here tonight and that people would see you and your goodness now. In Jesus' name, amen.

Amen.

You may be seated. And Chris, take the roll, please.

Council Member Hoffman. Here. Council Member Dupre. Here. Council Member Kavanagh. Here. Council Member Reed.

Here. Council Member Galloway.

Here.

Mayor Foote. Here. First item is consent agenda part one. Do I have a motion to approve? Motion to approve.

Second.

Any question or comments? Chris, take the roll, please.

Council Member Hoffman?

Yes.

Council Member Duprey? Yes. Council Member Kavanagh?

Yes.

Council Member Reid?

Yes.

Council Member Galloway? Yes.

Next up, consent agenda part two. Do I have a motion to approve? I'll move. Second. Any question or comment? Chris, take the roll, please.

Council Member Hoffman? Yes. Council Member Duprey? Yes. Council Member Kavanagh?

Yes.

Council Member Reid?

No.

Council Member Galloway? Yes.

With that, we had moved to the approval of the agenda. Do I have a motion to approve the agenda?

So moved.

Second.

Chris, take the roll, please.

Council Member Hoffman. Yes. Council Member Dupre. Yes. Council Member Kavanagh. Yes. Council Member Reid. Yes. Council Member Galloway.

Yes.

And with that, I will turn it over to Administrator Rath.

Okay, thank you. I'm going to keep this short and sweet tonight. The only thing I really wanted to mention, it's an invitation open to the public that tomorrow night at 6 o'clock at Bridgeview Center, Fire Chief Canto and the department will be providing a presentation on the report that was drafted related to ambulance service in the city and the proposal that he'd been working on for the last several months. So Everyone's invited to attend that and get more information, and I believe there'll be an opportunity for Q&A towards the end as well. It's tomorrow night, six o'clock at Bridgeview Center.

Okay, thank you. With that, if you would like to speak on any of the agenda items, I just ask that you fill out one of these slips of paper. They're in the basket on the front banister, and they'll get those up there so we can plug you in on the right agenda item. So with that, we would move into the public hearing.

This is the time, place, and date set for a public hearing on the proposed vacation of part of the right-of-way of Iowa Avenue and the City of Ottumwa, Wapello County, Iowa.

With that, I would declare the public hearing open and turn it over to our Community Development Director, Amal.

Thank you, Your Honor. This is just a quick presentation to show where the vacation request is being proposed. This is at South Iowa Avenue. This is the general location. The red dot shows where that is near the South Iowa Avenue. This is the JBS facility highlighted here in magenta. So what is happening is JPS is planning on an addition to their existing facility. So the yellow box you see here, this is the proposed addition. It's, I believe, about 12,000 square foot addition. And requesting vacation of 12.5 square foot. needed to position that building, just a little piece out the right of way. Here, this plan shows the red triangle here, shows the building where it needs to sit within the right of way. Just the tip of the building. And here, those highlighted with a thick black border, this is the right-of-way. As you can see, we have extra here. The green area where the air is pointing, just the tip of that building is going to sit. Currently, we do not have a public use for that area, and the building needs only 12.5 square foot. So request or propose ordinance to vacate the 12.5 square foot out of this right away would be a small, very tiny triangle out of this right away. And it shows here in the map pointed by the arrow where the location is going to be. And I'll take any questions if you have in regard to the matter and why we're doing this. Obviously, we want to facilitate that growth. It's consistent with our economic development agenda, which is business expansion and tax-based expansion as well. So we'd like to facilitate this development. All they need is a tiny piece of our plenty right away. And city engineer here, if you have anything to add in regards to public use, and we had met and discussed this request as a technical review committee, and it has been presented to planning and zoning commission and the commission voted in favor and here relaying that recommendation to council.

Okay. Thank you. Any questions or comments from council?

So it is a very small little piece, obviously, 12 and a half square feet, that's pretty small. And if it'll help them, I'm in favor of that.

Yeah.

Is that on the west side of the street? Am I seeing that correctly?

I think it's on the east side. East, yes. East side of the street.

East side of the street.

Now if I'm reading that correctly, further north, the right-of-way is right at the street. Is that correct?

Yes.

Yeah. So they're basically just extending that line straight through as needed for their building. Yeah.

Here, the property line shows here as a thick black line.

OK. Did we receive any comments for or against this vacation? Did you receive anything at all?

No.

No, okay. I did not either. Okay, this is a public hearing, so I would open it up if there's anyone in the audience that would like to speak on this matter to go ahead and come forward. Okay, seeing none, I would entertain a motion to close the public hearing.

So moved.

Chris, take the roll, please.

Council Member Hoffman. Yes. Council Member Duprey. Yes. Council Member Kavanagh.

Yes.

Council Member Reed.

Yes.

Council Member Galloway.

Yes.

Ordinance number 3259-2026, an ordinance vacating part of the right-of-way of Iowa Avenue and the city of Ottumwa, Wapello County, Iowa. Recommendation passed the first consideration of ordinance number 3259-2026. So is there a motion to approve?

So moved. Any other questions? Chris, take the roll, please.

Council Member Hoffman. Yes. Council Member Dupre. Yes. Council Member Kavanagh. Yes. Council Member Reid. Yes. Council Member Galloway.

Yes.

Ordinance number 3260-2026, an ordinance amending the municipal code of the city of Ottumwa, Iowa, by amending various sections of chapter 23, motor vehicles and traffic, for the purpose of adding stop signs on Ferry Street and at Finley Avenue. Recommendation passed the first consideration of ordinance number 3260-2026. Is there a motion to approve?

Move the recommendation. City engineer, Berkmeyer.

All right, thank you, Mayor. So before I start this, I want to say that the recommendation is to pass the ordinance, but I think it's important to give both sides of everything we present just the benefits. Otherwise, everybody wants stop signs everywhere if I'll ever told you the benefits. So I'm going through this just to give both sides of the situation. So this ordinance changes traffic regulations to place stop signs on Ferry Street at Finley Avenue. The stop sign is likely to reduce the number of accidents caused by drivers on Findlay failing to yield the right of way from drivers on Ferry Street. It also likely reduces severity of accidents from drivers running the existing stop signs on Findlay. But placing stop signs at Ferry Street also has costs, both monetary and safety related. It costs vehicles around five cents to slow, stop, and resume the original speed. Based on our traffic counts, the new stop signs are gonna cost drivers on Ferry Street $105,000 extra per year to have to stop at the stop sign. And also some safety effects. It's important to note that people don't robotically obey stop signs. They see a stop sign and they expect that if I see a stop sign, there's going to be traffic coming from the side. If you don't, If you put a stop sign where people don't ever see traffic coming from the sides, they just intend to roll through it. They tend to roll through it. So because the traffic volumes on Findlay Street didn't warrant stop signs, this increases the likelihood that more drivers are likely to roll through the stop sign. So this is kind of dangerous for pedestrians in that area that expect every car to fully stop. Somebody that just like sees a stop sign and walks out into the street without thinking about it and not looking. If the cars are more likely to roll through it, they're more likely to cause an accident that way. It's also going to increase crashes by drivers on Ferry Street because you'll have 2 million cars every year that have to stop at a stop sign and negotiate that, whereas before it was only the side street traffic that had to do that. And then also the intersection level of service will be worse because all these drivers are having to stop now. So it'll be more likely, you know, a car that drives fair street every day will be more likely to try a different route. They have fewer stop signs to stop at. So it'll increase traffic on side streets in a really unknown way. And then also, stop signs are known to increase speeding away from the stop sign. So people that do drive past that stop sign and feel it's not necessary are more likely to speed, for instance, between Findlay and Mary Street to kind of make up for lost time for having to stop. They don't think they need to. Now overall vehicle accident numbers are expected to be the same or slightly reduced at the intersection and for the severity of the, or the severity of the incidents or the crashes to be significantly reduced. Pedestrian crashes are probably more likely, not because the cars are more likely to hit them, but because more people are likely to cross the street there. If there's no stop sign, pedestrians are more likely to look both ways and make sure nobody's coming before they walk out. The stop sign there gives you a false sense of security, especially middle school age students. They'll just walk out without looking. So it'd be important that people stop at the stop sign when it's there. So anyway, those are the

safety benefits from those reduced crashes reduced severity but also you know some unknown costs and some known costs from from monetary and uh traffic related incidents so okay before i turn it over to council i do have someone from the audience that would like to speak on this item so i'm going to ask landon allen from the chief information officer with the community school district

All right, good evening, Mayor and Council. I'm here on behalf of the Ottumwa Community School District to seek support of Ordinance 3260-2026 and making a four-way stop at North Ferry and Finley Avenue permanent. Before I do, I do want to emphasize that the school district has had a very positive working relationship with the City Engineering Department and Traffic Department. Many of you might not know, but I have worked hand in hand with Phil on numerous safety improvements around our schools, including red stamped crosswalks, LED flashing crosswalk signs, speed indicator signs. Some of the things that you see at our schools have been because of this partnership. I am speaking tonight, though, because after reviewing the staff summary for this ordinance, I felt it was important that the school district provide some additional perspective on several of the points being considered. Ultimately, the district is responsible for the safety and well-being of more than 5,000 students, one-fifth of the population of Ottumwa, and I believe that their experience as pedestrians, drivers, passengers needs to be part of this discussion. I understand the city had a traffic study that was done and it reviewed historical crash data at this intersection and determined that potentially just crash history alone does not warrant this four-way stop. I respect that analysis. I also understand that recent traffic counts were conducted during the summer. I think that's important context. When we're talking about traffic near our schools during the school years, we obviously have additional buses, parents, student drivers, pedestrians, and bicyclists using this corridor. It's also important to recognize that traffic volume and crash history are not the only factors that support an all-way stop. The Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices, because we need an acronym, MUTCD, is a national standard issued by the Federal Highway Administration. That's part of the Department of Education. It allows other factors to be considered, including pedestrian bicycle movements and whether an all-way stop would improve traffic operations. that's particularly relevant when you look at the city's own planning document titled the autumnal bicycle and pedestrian plan pathways to healthy neighborhoods which i have worked with area 15 regional planning they provided that to me a couple years ago and that identifies both north ferry street and finley avenue as an orange priority two corridor for pedestrians and that's in a scale of one through four one being the highest City Engineering Department also referenced at the last City Council meeting the Safe Routes to School program. I reached out to the Director of Safe Routes to School, who has worked with us and actually walked all of these buildings to determine what safety measures we could put in place to improve safety for our students. I'll be handing out to Mr. Weller, Director of Safety, if you don't mind, in that folder there. I have letters that I'd like to provide all of the council this is the director of iowa safe routes to school in a letter supporting the addition of these stop signs at this intersection the director mr berkeley for the iowa safe routes fully supports making this a permanent four-way stop sign and he wanted me to note that you know he does not he disagrees with the engineering department's assessment that pedestrian crashes would be more likely In 2016, since 2016, there have been 12 crashes at Findlay and Ferry and another nine at Chester and Ferry. So he encourages the city to look at that entire corridor. So from our perspective, though, at the end of the day, the four-way stop signs worked and helped traffic flow and improve safety. So I respectfully ask the council to consider this as part of a complete picture and approve the ordinance. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Landon. And then I will state that I did hear from the Public Safety Committee. Mr. Burgmeier, could I interrupt?

Mr. Burgmeier, didn't we, the council, decide that those stop signs would be lighted solar signs?

We did? No, that was different intersections. That was for a safety grant application for Finley. Finley and Ferry, but in a different section of Finley.

Is there a chance we could get that done anyway? If this is a place where there may be accidents and we can't teach people how to read STOP, maybe they would reserve a lighted ring around the stop sign.

We've used them before in a few locations. They're pretty expensive. I can look into how much they would cost and if that's something the council wants to do, we can put those there as well.

Nothing close to a roundabout, however.

That'd be an octagon stop sign.

Yeah.

Pretty close to a circle.

Well, and I will say that I did hear from a member of the Public Safety Advisory Committee and he just wanted to reiterate that this is something that they had looked at. They're in full support of the four-way stop at this intersection. So he just wanted me to pass that along to council as well. And with that, I've also have one other person from the public that would like to speak on this item. So I'm gonna call up Colleen Decker and then we'll get into further comments from council.

Colleen Decker, 719 Gladwood Avenue. So Glenwood is right there. A few things, I'm not against a stop sign there, and I'm not saying to do it. I just, a couple of ideas and thoughts on it. One, watching the kids leave school, they pretty much do walk perpendicular there along Ferry Road. And rarely are they crossing over at that point. It's usually down at Chester. And just wondering a couple of things. One, if it's a four-way stop, when they go across and the cars have already stopped, are they going to see that it's their turn or not their turn? When is it my turn? On the way to school, so if you're going to school, the buses are leaving there and it gets piled up. And I don't know if there's something else to consider, a different route for the buses in a case that there's a four-way stop there. It takes a long time for those buses to get through. Parents are all coming. And you can take a five-minute trip and make it a 20, literally 20-minute trip. when all those buses are there. So for the other public that lives right around there, it may be a consideration and another thought of where the buses could go alternatively and keep the kids safe at the same time. Just questions.

All right. Thank you.

that is there any other questions or comments from council i would like to respond a little bit so the the traffic study did show that um the accident history at finley and ferry did warrant a stop sign so that that was the one warrant they did meet but um I want to just point, I have the study right here and that this I'm going to read right from it. So the safety of pedestrians is decreased that unwarranted multi-way stops, especially small children. It seems that pedestrians expect vehicles to stop at stop signs, but many vehicles have gotten the habit of running the unnecessary stop sign and 13 different references found this to be their finding. So there's a lot of studies that if people roll through stop signs, it doesn't make it safer for pedestrians. Sure. This is for unwarranted stop signs, not ones that are warranted based on traffic studies. Or based on traffic volumes.

I think my wife, who is a near genius, advised me that the school crossing designed by them is to be at Chester and Ferry.

I believe so.

So... This is just an alternate method of getting across the street and getting to school. I don't find any problem with that.

So I know the council received an email and then I received a couple more. So I think it's our due diligence to ask. Someone did ask and point out or inquire about maybe not making it a permanent stop because kind of like you said, it stops the flow of traffic on the weekends, but in school having a a portable stop sign. I think there was one, I don't know if on Mary there's a stop sign out there too that's moved in and out. So I received a couple comments asking about that and I know the rest of the council at least received one email regarding that and the pros, cons to that.

So pros and cons. Iowa is one of the few states that actually uses portable stop signs by school zones and they actually have a specific carve out of MUTCD specifically for that in Iowa. I'm not really sold on those because I think people are used to driving out of school hours that just forget what time of day it is. I think that can cause more issues than having it this there permanently. So if there is going to be a choice between a temporary stop sundering school hours and a permanent one, I would rather see a permanent one there than a temporary because I think it'll

Being a resident of that area, I would prefer it be permanent because it gets real confusing. We have so many, I mean, they put temporary ones out over by Liberty and also by Dama. And it creates a problem because if you're not paying attention, which I realize as a driver, we should be paying attention, but not everybody does. Having it more permanent is, I think would reduce accidents because I've heard people say, well, now that they've taken it out, there's more accidents. People assume that there's a stop sign. Some people know that there's no stop sign and it's creating more problems even down at Marion Ferry. And now, you know, with Finley and Ferry, we had the same problem when we took that out around the 4th of July.

Well, the good thing about the Finley or ferry and Mary one is they have a crossing guard there when the stop signs out. So the stop signs there, but they also have a crossing guard. So if people don't notice it, that crossing guards are to help the kids get across.

But when you were doing the construction, I think there was a sign that was put up that was more permanent and they liked it at the time, you know? So when we took it out, then it was confusion. Yeah. Maybe we're just easily confused.

Just to be transparent to my team here, I do intend to support the stop signs because it is a safety measure. And just to Councilman Kavanagh's point, the flashing red lights or the red lights are on the stop signs. I do have a lot of experience with those where I work. We use those. And even in the brightest day, they draw attention. They really do. You can see them from a long ways away. However, I do want to point out, even though I will vote to support it there's been some studies and some things that's been presented but phil's not wrong i mean when he brought up these statistics that it does cause traffic backups that it does cause um i mean there's research on both sides so i don't want to walk away thinking what he said was wrong because i mean even a quick a quick search is uh cars back up longer driver mistakes rolling stops blocked paths But of course, we need something there. We know we need something there. So I just want to point out that I'm supporting it because it's a safety measure. I want to see how it works. But he isn't wrong in his research.

Well, and the counterpoints to it are more to kind of make it clear that stop signs don't solve everything. They're not just a costless measure we can put everywhere we want to. They should be in a specific spot for a specific reason and that the cost, that way the benefits. not that this particular one has more costs and benefits but that there are costs to it so don't we shouldn't just be wanting to put them everywhere right right and i do agree with councilman cabinets i wish we could do the the red ones at least right there where it could be i mean i see the advantage to that

Mr. Burgmeier, is it fair to say that this is like a year study and that, I mean, we're choosing to do this. This isn't necessarily what we're saying is the final answer. We're just wanting to do this for a year and see how it goes. If we find that it is backing up and causing troubles, there's going to have to be

Yeah, we can watch it for the school year and see how it works and get feedback from the school and feedback from the people and see what happens and revisit it in a year. That's not an issue.

Yeah. So if council decides to adopt this ordinance through all of the readings, it would put it into the ordinance. And until there's a subsequent removal by ordinance, it would be in place, whether that's a year, five years, whatever.

Right.

something that could be studied as as dpw berkmeyer mentioned so if down the road we wanted to apply for the safety grant for roundabouts because that seems like a better option that time that was one of the things we talked about at the last meeting all right so but it would be in place until there'd be an ordinance change assuming that it's approved all the way through the the readings

And if the first reading passes tonight, I plan on putting the stop signs out this week and ready for school next week. And they'll be temporary at that time. Like on paper, they'll be temporary. But once the third reading passes, they'll become permanent unless you want to waive the second, third readings.

I think for safety reasons for school, it'd be better to have them four weeks.

And Phil will keep an eye on it too, like as we go, somebody will, I mean, say we're four months in, somebody will still kind of be paying attention. Is this working? The school system, they'll be logging, making sure we're okay and it's working, correct?

Yeah.

Okay. The only other comment that I have is it's been a few years since I went to Evans, but they used to park the buses in front of the school on Chester Avenue. Right. I don't know if they still do that or not.

I believe they still do, yes.

Yes, they do. Okay, thank you.

So if no other questions, Chris, take the roll, please.

Council Member Hoffman.

Yes.

Council Member Dupre. Yes. Council Member Kavanagh. Yes. Council Member Reed. Yes. Council Member Galloway. Fire department vehicle purchases. Recommendation, approve the purchase of two vehicles for the fire department totaling $86,326, which includes a 2026 Ford Explorer, which is 42780 from Dewey Ford, and a 2026 Chevrolet Silverado, which is 43546 from McGrath Chevrolet.

That do I have a motion to approve? Second. All right. Chief Canto.

Good evening, City Council, Mayor Burnett, Administrator Rath. This evening the department is here to ask for your approval to purchase two new staff vehicles for addition to our current fleet. The department at this time does not have any spare vehicles to be utilized when our current staff vehicles are down. For example, my vehicle, the Deputy Chief's vehicle, the Assistant Chief's vehicle. When they go in for preventive maintenance, they can be down for an extended period of time. Another thing we have encountered is that when our members are off duty, they respond in their personal vehicles. They come to the scene, which actually creates a little bit of liability for us, is they're parked along the road. And if their vehicle actually gets struck, the city could actually respond. be responsible for repairs of those vehicles. The two vehicles that we currently have, which are the two pickup trucks, they would be removed into reserve status, would be used for such things as training. When we do hire the fire inspector, the fire inspector would use that reserve vehicle, one of those reserve vehicles during the day to go out and do inspections. It would be used for emergency response and assisting. And we right now have one pickup truck that's available to pull our boats, but we have two boats and then we have two trailers. So we only have one vehicle that can pull one thing at a time. So when we started looking at the vehicles, we initially started looking at for the replacements to move the two current vehicles into reserve status. We looked at Chevy Tahoe's. However, at the time, the state bid were no longer a cost-effective option because they were basically sold out and they would have to become a build. What we started looking at was different inventory that was out there. For example, the 2026 Ford Explorer, which is very similar to what the police department uses. The state bid for a police interceptor package, pursuit package is $45,653. We were able to get the Explorer for $42,780 because we don't need the police package pursuit. We're not pursuing after people. The Silverado, if you looked at the police package, Silverado was $50,494 on the state bid. We were able to get it at $43,546. We did in the capital CIP budget for 2026 put in for $120,000. The two vehicle combined pricing is $86,326, which leaves the remaining budget of items for outfitting, which is emergency lighting, radios, the striping, uh the pickup truck will need a cap and a pull out in the back for the deputy chief's vehicle so i asked this evening for your approval chief i was told that your safety committee did not approve this purchase is that correct There wasn't a safety committee. So the fleet committee actually looks at replacement of vehicles. They don't look at the addition of vehicles. So the fleet committee did not look at the two current vehicles we have to be replaced because we're keeping them. And they said it needed to come. If we were going to add these two vehicles, it needed to come to Council. I think Mr. Rath had some information in relation to that.

Yeah, the question had come up and I forwarded a response to city council in reference to that. And so with the fleet committee, the replacement, they're looking at typically if a request is made to replace a vehicle, the wear and tear on it, the maintenance requirements on an annual basis, et cetera, and measure that against the cost of a new vehicle. And yeah, to help with making sure that we're not replacing vehicles more frequently than are necessary. Or if other departments are in need of a vehicle, that if a vehicle is still able to be used, could be rotated down to a different department. Those are some of the things that are there the fleet committee can evaluate. The other thing is when we were setting dollars aside out of the operating budget for the purchase of vehicles, there was a fund that was created and they helped to make recommendations as to which department should get funds in any given year for the purchase of the vehicles and then determining what would happen with the outgoing vehicles. So as Chief Canto had mentioned, these were two additional vehicles and city council will still have the purview to approve that. These vehicles were approved in the capital improvement plan last fall and in the budget process. So they are budgeted as he mentioned, and were anticipated purchases for this fiscal year.

I guess I'm confused. I know that the 120,000 was budgeted in the fire fleet under this 310. But when I look at the projects for the year, I didn't have the vehicle fleet for the one year. $120,000 highlighted as one that Cole had chosen to put in for the bonds?

It was not bonded. The dollars are in the Fleet Reserve Fund, in the Fund 310.

But if it's the Fleet Reserve Fund, is that for replacement vehicles only or is that for new vehicles as well?

It could be for anything. Okay.

Okay.

Anything vehicle related.

Thank you. So chief helped me to understand that on the new ones would be used for what?

The new ones are going to be assigned to myself and the deputy chief and then the two pickup trucks. Do you use daily?

And the two pickup trucks that you have now would be reserved.

reserve and use when we hire the inspector, for example, as we talked about having a fire inspector, they need a vehicle to go out. We don't have that vehicle as well. And it's like I said, we have nothing as a pool vehicle. So for example, the police department, they have a cruiser breaks down, they have a spare cruiser. We don't have any of that within our fleet currently.

Okay. And so when are those, the pickups that you have now, when are those due to be replaced?

They're 2013s. So they're currently 13 years old. So I think of that evaluation, you know, if they would remain a daily vehicle, if that makes sense. You know, I think with what we're doing and them being a reserve and not necessarily a daily driver, we can get a couple more years out of them.

I think the charge says they'd be replaced in 29 and 30, fiscal years 29 and 30.

Right, but they may actually go.

Make it a little longer if they're not used quite as much.

Correct.

What have you had to do in the past when you had a vehicle breakdown when you were in the shop, like you mentioned?

I drive my personal vehicle.

Can you walk me through the need for two? So I understand, well, I'm processing through like how we can use one, but then just help me process through the need for two.

So one would be placed at each station. For example, when we send members to training, we had members this past weekend that would go to training. One of those vehicles would have obviously been gone for a period of time. It still allows another vehicle if we need for emergency response. So that helps in assisting that process. There are times where, you know, for example, this afternoon, having a structure fire in the city, we had eight additional people come in. So it allows them to go to the station, get their gear, throw that gear in the pickup truck. But we couldn't do that with just one vehicle as well. And that another vehicle could possibly be in use for something else.

So right now all you have is, I mean, you've got fire trucks, big ones, little ones, and then you mentioned some boats and things like that. Do you have any other vehicles?

We have a brush truck and then the hazmat trucks.

The brush truck, the box one?

No, the brush truck is a pickup truck that has the water pump system in the back of it.

And then you have a smaller one that's just a pickup truck with a bed on it that says fire truck?

We have the squad unit that is used by the on-duty assistant chief, and that's the command unit. But, for example, when that goes down, there's not a vehicle for them to go into either.

Well, my personal opinion is just because the money's in the bank doesn't mean that we have to spend it.

in my conversation so the money is going to come out of it's not coming out of the general fund that is correct from 310 which is um and it's not bonded money it's money we have on hand as administrators said um and so that's my you know i was concerned about general fund okay general funds where we're trying to save money but it's not coming out of the general fund that is correct

so i know that there's some questions too about it but could we for now would one suffice one vehicle suffice that one vehicle would suffice uh again it's not my preference but yeah I understand that, but I'm also trying, know that there's reservations too. And so just kind of talking through it all too, understanding what that could look like with one vehicle if we have a fire inspector coming in too.

So if you said that these are used for you and the Lieutenant Chiefs?

The Deputy Chief, correct.

Deputy Chief's personal vehicles? Well, this is what you commute with?

Correct, that's what we respond with.

And about how many miles a year are you guys putting on those?

I live in the city and I drive it to work and go to incidents in it. And so I don't, and if I go to a meeting or things along those lines, I would probably say less than 12,000.

And the same for the deputy chief?

Well, he lives a little further, but same thing, yeah.

About 12,000?

Probably, yeah.

I'm actually okay with them having both. I mean, I'm just going to lay it out there. It's the fire department. I think there's a need. I think that, I mean, I understand if they're using them to send out of town to trainings and different things and, you know, there's trainings coming up and they can use it to haul personnel and equipment. I mean, I do want to be a good steward of taxpayers' money and I kind of wrestle with this in my mind because it is $86,000, but... The ones they do have, 2013, and even though they do have, we talk about miles, there is wear and tear from emergency use as well. So just to be transparent, that's where I stand. I'm not going to go on all night.

Who tows the boat now? How do they do it now?

We have the brush truck. That's the only vehicle we have it. And then we have hazmat trailers that need to be pulled.

So if you needed both boats, you'd have the vehicles to pull both boats.

Correct. We have two boats, one trailer, or two boats, one truck that would be available. to get that hooked up and out. You know, for example, the brush truck also pulls the, the gator, our, our gator, EMS gator that gets pulled by the brush truck. So if we have more, and again, this is like even today, you know, we don't have really even have a, the brush truck has this permanent box in the back we can't throw hose in there we can't throw equipment in there um and so that was part of the reason we were looking at both vehicles is that um you know the deputy chief for example has a bigger vehicle because he carries a lot more stuff when doing fire investigations and things along those lines the um the smaller explorer vehicle would it would work as well um and then we are putting those spare vehicles because we have nothing at this point

So Phil, in your letter, you're saying that because this is an addition, this is a little different process than what we've done in the past.

Right. So, yeah, the council still approves any new vehicles. Specifications would go through the fleet committee. As Chief Canto mentioned, the vehicles that he's looking at purchasing are recommended here had gone through fleet committee for the police department. So they've been through the process.

That was for police, not for fire? Or was it...

Yes, they were for the police department, but it's a similar vehicle specification.

The pickup truck, for example, is just a newer year of a similar vehicle we bought previously.

I guess my only concern is if we have other departments that want to come to us and they want to add to their fleet as well. Are we opening up a...

That is a good process question.

Yeah. And the process is the same for anybody. These were done through the capital improvement planning process. All departments are open to that and recommend that. And then the evaluation is done for based on need, safety, security, et cetera. it is a whole variety of things and then that whole plan is brought before city council for adoption um it's reviewed it's recommended and then officially adopted by council changes may be made along the way um you know things added things deleted uh so To answer your question that the process is the same with that, as far as any new vehicles or requests. This is Chief canto identified a need and the department recommended that was not able to attend that particular fleet committee meeting because of being on calls.

And so what was this? Was this meeting held when we still had called Donald?

Correct. It was in May. Yeah, and he also was not. This meeting was in October, I believe.

I know Cole was still here, though.

Cole was here, but he wasn't at the meeting either, according to the minutes.

Chief, I would recommend that if this council votes this request down, you can always resubmit another request for one truck, which someone on the council suggested you might get by with.

that I was going to ask Council Member Galloway. I know you had made that suggestion.

We could also, okay.

I was going to ask if you were intending to make a motion to amend. Okay.

So I have one more question. This is probably a process question. So if the vehicle, whether it's two or one, more to like if these additions were to happen and they were the two current vehicles that you're using were to go to not daily drivers, then would it be the fleet committee that would reevaluate their replacement dates?

on those vehicles, the ones that would get moved out, yes.

And currently they are on schedule to get replaced. And I believe Mr. Reid was correct that it's one in 29 and one in 30.

But that could be extended to a couple more years.

Correct.

But the thing, I don't know, maybe I think differently than everybody else, but I mean, he did say one thing in there about if there was an emergency, and we can only haul one piece of equipment at a time when we need both of those pieces of equipment. I mean, I know the money seems large now until you have that need and it's one of your loved ones that's in a pond or that needs something. So, I mean, I understand the fiscal part of it,

I could give you an example. We have two engines. Each have four seats. That's eight. We have the two ladder trucks, the Quint and the other ladder truck. That's another eight. It holds 16. There's eight people on duty normally. If we, like today, had the fire that we had and we had 12 people come in, how do they get there?

Does our insurance cover people driving their vehicle to on-scene? Like if they were to go on-scene and something happened on the way to scene?

That was a question I brought up because when I first got here, I actually watched a member's vehicle. It was an icy night, and they were parked off of Albia Road, and their vehicle was almost struck, and that was a question I brought up.

Not only that, most first responder accidents, whether it be police or fire, are traffic-related scenes due to vehicles on the scene. And it's the highest number of fatalities.

Because what we end up having is when they bring all their POVs to the scene, now personal owned vehicles, sorry, the jargon. We now have 10 vehicles lined up, parked out in the area where we could just have maybe two or three.

So it's in the budget for these vehicles. That was part of something that was passed. Was the budget also updated to handle extra insurance? I'm sure there's going to be a rise in our insurance. I wonder if that was updated.

That was not, but the addition of those vehicles is not going to be significant. We're not going to be at $30,000 or anything like that within that budget.

our blanket of our insurance.

We'd have to get the values. I don't even know if it would be that much based off of what we're adding.

Also, if you have more vehicles, then you have more fuel, too. That's part of the expense of operating is more fuel getting burned, perhaps, even I don't know how that would measure in. You're going to have the two trucks basically sitting in reserve, but they're still probably going to run multiple times a week.

They'll be used.

Yeah. So anyway, you got more vehicles burning fuel, just be more fuel. So I was talking about.

Your Honor, if I could make the suggestion, pretty well chewed this truck thing over. Why don't we take a vote?

Well, yeah, if there's no other questions from council. Okay, Chris, take the roll.

Council Member Hoffman?

Yes.

Council Member Dupre? No. Council Member Kavanagh?

No.

Council Member Reed?

Yes.

Council Member Galloway? Yes. Motion carries.

Thank you. Thank you, Chief.

Resolution number 177-2026, approving change order number one and number two and accepting the work as final and complete and approving the final pay request for the Water Pollution Control Facility VLR Gates Project. Recommendation passed and adopt resolution number 177-2026. Is there a motion to approve?

Second. Second. Good. Mr. Bergmeier.

Thank you, Mayor. So this project replaced five gates in the vertical loop reactor, one gate at the diffuser and one gate at the walnut pump station, along with repairing veins in BLR cell number two. Change order number one increased the contract sum by $8,804.75 in order to recut channels for one gate. and to add reinforcement for the cell number two turning veins. Change order number two increases the contract sum by $1,800.90 for replacement of a gate stem and gate seal for a total change order amount of $10,605.65. Woodruff Construction Incorporation of Tiffin, Iowa has completed the above mentioned work according to the plans and specifications. This will authorize approval of change orders with the final payment releasing all retainage. So the original contract amount was $94,200. With the change orders, it's $104,805.65. Less than previous payments is the final amount due at $3,144.17. So these are the gates. controlled how water flows through our vertical lip reactors, the ones at the VLR and then the ones at the Walnut Pump Station and the ones at the diffuser controlled how water flows out of there into the river. So the one at Walnut Pump Station is like a half size gate that in high flows, water flows over it into the river directly. Otherwise it turns it towards the diffuser and the one at the diffuser turns water from the diffuser to our shore discharge downstream if we ever have to do maintenance on the diffuser, so. The gates are just old and worn out.

So I'm sure the work was all satisfactory and everything was... Yep, work satisfactory.

We got new stainless steel gates and the old ones were aluminum. So they got corroded pretty good.

Do you know if this money was in the budget or not?

Yeah, it was budgeted for FY26. So it was last year's budget, but it didn't get finished until after July 1.

So with the change orders, are we still within budget?

Yeah, well within budget. Yeah, well within, not the project, but the line item budget well within it. I think we're actually below the project budget too, if I remember right. I think it was 120 we had for it.

Okay. Any other questions? Chris, take the roll, please.

Council Member Hoffman. Yes. Council Member Dupre. Yes. Council Member Kavanagh. Yes. Council Member Reed.

Yes.

Council Member Galloway. Yes.

Okay, with that, we are in the section for public forum. And I do have one person that would like to speak now. So I'm going to call up Mr. Floyd Hendred. Just state your name and address and then. Well, thank you, Your Honor.

My name is Floyd Lewis Hendred, 622 North Street, Ottumwa, Iowa. Your Honor, my comment is directly applicable to city operations because it will help save money. I say that residential housing repair renovation should be done, accomplished solely by the property owner to help save money, to help keep our city finances solvent. Thank you, council members, and also your honor.

All right. Thank you, sir. With that, is there anyone else from the audience that would like to speak on any non-agenda item?

Okay.

If not, We're gonna move into the Mayor-City Council report. I know one of the things on the agenda is we are gonna just kind of review the goals that have been set for the city administrator. And I think there was discussion about a possible adding one that had been discussed and not included before. So with that, we'll move into that Mayor-City Council. Did you read that? Yeah, I just read that.

Revisit goals, expectations of city administrator from evaluation process earlier this year. Recommendation ensure regular meetings between the city administrator and department head staff are activated.

Okay, and so with this, I'll just start off. I believe I have supplied all the council with the list of the goals that had been put together on June 9th. And so I'll just review those real quickly. One was to do the structural reporting to the city starting July 7th. I know Administrator Rath has done that. and thank you for doing those. Then the next was the presentation of a priority-based budget for our general fund for 27. The goal initially was July 21st. I know he's been working on that.

there's been other things going on so um so yeah if you have an updated date uh that we could place there administrator that would be great i don't i put you on the spot so if you don't have it tonight then yeah uh as soon as possible um like haley said i've been working on that trying to just get fit in where i can um making some progress uh uh and i think i'm at the point where i can start meeting with the departments that have items in the general fund. Once I get that piece done, then it should fit together. When I've done this in the past, it was using a software package, which made that a lot more functional and easy to maneuver. I'm having to manipulate that manually. So it's taking more time than I anticipated. And as you mentioned, some of the other issues going on have added some complexity to that. Sure. let's say September 15th meeting.

Okay. And then I would just add, this does give opportunity for a new finance officer to come in and assist in that as well. Correct. So I think that's a good opportunity there.

Is that enough? Is that enough time realistically for you in the, um, I'll take all the time you want to give, but I'm just thinking like he, he's going to come in and, He's got a lot on his plate in the beginning. Yeah, and we want to make sure that we're all on the same page. So realistically.

Push it to the last meeting in September, the first meeting in October. The 15th is the last meeting.

Okay, then you better go to October.

Should we do October 1?

Or first meeting on October? Yeah, first meeting in October.

Okay. Perfect.

I think that makes more sense.

All right. Thank you.

All right. The two others, and we're not near those yet, but I'll just review them. One was publishing a quarterly newsletter for city employees, which will be also available to the residents of the city. The goal there is to have that first one available by October 15th. So I'm assuming we're still on track for that. And then also looking at the secession plan for administrator, department heads, supervisors, and working on getting that put together by the end of the year. Those are the goals that have been set. I know one of the other things that had come up in conversation since then was having a set regular schedule with department heads for the administrator that had been discussed and then it kind of moved off during that meeting. But then it was asked if we could bring that back up and revisit that. So that's primarily what we're revisiting here tonight. So with that, I would open it up for comments, questions from council, and then we can go from there.

Well, I was the one that kind of brought that up again, and I did talk to Phil about it, so I just want to be transparent about that. And I don't think anything was wrong. I think, I don't know, maybe I presented it wrong last time. Maybe it looked. When I say I want Phil to have half-hour meetings with department heads, and I understand Phil's easy to hold up. You made that clear that you could go talk to him. On a city administrator's eval, you want to put some positive points too. And one of those is, is work with, you know, working with department heads and we've set goals and past years. My point is, is, is I would like Bill to meet maybe. And I want to start off by saying he didn't disagree when I talked to him. Remember Phil didn't say, no, I don't want to do this. No, no, that wasn't what it was. I would like to see it maybe a half hour. How many department heads do we have? 11. 11. So, you know, maybe once a month for a half hour and maybe every couple of months he comes to the environment they're in. And it doesn't have to be, hey, I need to communicate this to you. I envision this more of your growth and his growth. Look at it as mentor-mentee time. And then I would hope that maybe the department head's I'm not saying we present this and bring this up, but maybe you pick a mentor and you mentor somebody that could be somebody. But that's how I envision it. And that's why I wanted to bring it to the council. And believe me, it's not to be a pain. It's for Phil's benefit. It's for evaluation benefits. It's for the most well, it's for the department head benefit. It gives a chance for just an uninterrupted half hour once a month for growth. And by doing that, that not only will help help bill grow, it helps that department head grow. So that's how I envision that.

Sure. I guess part of that discussion, and maybe this is what council could talk about is, I think it's important to have the regular meetings. Is once a month the right frequency? Maybe that's something that can be talked about. Maybe some department heads once a month might be a little, are meeting often enough to where a regular scheduled once a month Maybe too frequent. Maybe it's once a quarter.

Well, like we got Michael coming, so maybe it might be twice a month. Right. But not a I'm training you kind of thing just to sit down and, hey, let's work on these leadership traits. Let's work on these leaders. Sure. Because Bill's got a lot to share. So that's the way I envision it. Not a, hey, I need to communicate this because this happened. That can happen other times. This is just strictly... under the communication, under the training. And I would hope that that would kind of prompt the department heads to maybe, and maybe some of you do it. I think some of you do do it actually is kind of pick somebody in your department to mentor. It kind of under the always be trained in your replacement kind of thing, or always be training somebody to fill in for you if you were sick or, you know, that's what I mean.

Yeah.

But I think it would help. It would help everybody's growth because every department head has a specialty. All our department heads are smart. They're all great, but they have different specialties. If somehow some of those can be shared, different traits, best practices, or the department heads may have best practices that would help fill. Because I'll share a story. You know, when I worked at Walmart, I mean, in asset protection, I had lots of people that worked for me and I learned a lot from them. When I would meet with them, I would, you would sit down and for a half hour a month and they would teach me things. So, I mean, that's how I envision it. I don't want to beat it into the ground here, but that's just how I envision it.

Sure. Council Member Hoffman, do you foresee that being a meeting where there's some notes, you know, notes taken and then kept on file for those meetings?

Well, and originally, I did. But when, when I come back and rethink it, I don't want it to be something scary, like a formal, you know what I mean? I think there should be a record. Oh yeah. I met with whoever on this date, but you know, the, the, the growth, I don't know, Phil could probably keep a notebook over who he's talking to, went over this leadership tactic, went over this leadership tactic, but that would just be for him personally for, uh, um, um, evaluation and everything.

I think too that having the meetings on a more regular basis becomes a little more casual when it's one-on-one versus your group meetings that you have on those Thursdays, I think it is. I mean, there might be something that they're more comfortable just talking to you for advice or give you some insight as to what's going on that they may not want to bring up in a huge meeting with everybody looking on. I just know that when I was in management, the one-on-ones helped me understand some of the struggles that my staff was having. Just a thought.

And, you know, another thing to add on to what she says there, you know, when I was salaried and I met with my boss once a month, it opened it up more for me to admit to him, hey, I think I'm struggling in this area. Can you help me? You know, like you open up a little bit, but it's for everybody's benefit. And I don't want to, you know, that's why I said maybe I presented wrong last time. I want it to happen, but I don't want it to be so formal that it scares people and it just turns into something bad. This is totally for growth and benefit of everybody.

Also, when I was mentored by my bosses, they would suggest classes or further education or see where maybe I was weak in something that they felt that I could use a little assistance in. It's not all bad. I mean, I know it takes some time, but a half hour once a month or once every other month or once a quarter, I don't know. I know there were some people saying that it's too far to drive just for a half hour meeting. But if you scheduled those people that were already here on a Thursday for your regular meeting for that half hour right after, they're already here. Just a thought for those that are traveling the furthest.

You could even do Zoom. You could do 25-minute Zoom meeting. I mean, because I don't want people to have to drive in, you know, if they live a long ways away. But like she said, when they're here, so.

I just have a couple things. So in relation to the goals, I know we're talking about a specific one, but Administrator Rapp did send out at that last meeting, we had asked him what he needed from us, and he did send out some correspondence regarding what he did need or recommendations on ways to... excuse me, help support them. And so in kind of, I would say parallel to this meeting with department heads, but one of his requests was establishing regular, I'm reading it from here, regular opportunities for city council members, mayor and the city administrator to meet with like with him and discuss ongoing initiatives, challenges and opportunities. I think that's, if I think that's really beneficial, not only to, I think it's really beneficial to us because there are a lot of conversations that we could have a lot of information we could have, but I think it also touches on some of the things that council person Hoffman's talking about to kind of that growth area or if there's areas that. you know, kind of back and forth too. So I think not only if we're looking at the recommendation of having staff have regular meetings with them, again, looking at that frequency, but also city council members having those individual meetings with them too, I think would be beneficial.

Yeah, I would echo that. I know I've been meeting with administrator. We've been trying to meet weekly. There's been a couple of times I wasn't able to be there or he wasn't, but yeah, it's been extremely beneficial.

It has. I meet with Phil every Monday at nine and I always cut into Dan's time. Dan comes at 9.30, I'm always like 9.35.

No, I think the meetings are very important for us as council members. And so, yeah, I think if we're going to expect our administrator to meet with our department heads. We need to be meeting with them regularly as well.

I would echo that. I've been doing it for five years and I still think I'm learning something new every time. So I would also say the frequency, maybe not monthly, maybe every other month too might be good. Just again, to make sure that they are beneficial meetings. That would just be my, for the department heads would be my recommendation.

Because you're not wanting to just make busy work. You're wanting it to be profitable. And so it might be a couple of month thing.

Right.

Yeah. So if I'm hearing it, sounds like the goal then would be to meet with department heads a minimum of regular scheduled time once every other month. I would suggest, and I'd lead that up to the department head and the administrator if they feel a more frequent regular meeting is beneficial and they're more than welcome to do that, but that would just be a minimum. Is that what I'm hearing from council? Yeah, okay. We don't need a vote on that. I think we have a consensus and we'll just add that to the goal and... keep that moving forward. Is there anything else then from council communication to the public or anything more about the goals for Administrator Rath?

I would just like to ask again, when we are going to speak about e-bikes?

soon i would love to see it on the schedule the agenda um sooner rather than later i had um some more concerns soon is a good answer because well you don't really know that no it is coming i i do plan on wanting to talk about it uh for sure in 2026 um if we can get to it before november i think that would be a great goal of mine to try to get it there so We'll try to get to it before November. Yep. Anything else that council would have for the public? If not, at this time, I guess,

I thought I had something, now I can't remember.

Okay. At this time, I'm gonna call for a short recess, four minute recess, at which point we will reconvene downstairs in conference room 128A, at which time the council will be going into closed session. So I call for a four minute recess.