City Meeting - Regular Meeting

All the meeting to order. We'll stand for the pledge.

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, we'll call everybody's here. We'll open it up to public comments. Please limit to three minutes. Please give your name and address for the public comment. And if you wish to step forward, you can now. Public comment going once, going twice. We'll close the public comment. All right. So one of them we're gonna move, Cheeto's working, so we're gonna move him to, it'd be number nine under, right after the resolution. And then I have under the fire department, we'd have number two would be the fire relief money of $14,220.

The fur permit is under action 11-3. Oh yeah, it is.

That's 11-3.

Got it. Thank you, Judy. Yep. Under action items, or other, I should say, 1A, about raising the, bumping the lawn mowing rate, hourly rate. and extending the application time. 1C would be the sheriff's contract. And then we have the, that was it, right, Judy? The resolution?

That resolution depends on if you put it under COGI or if you put it down under others.

We'll put that with Cody. So we can do number four under 10A4. Do we have them all this time, Barry? Okay. All right, make a motion to approve the additions and the rest of the agenda.

I'll make a motion to accept.

Second.

Motion to second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor indicate by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Any nays? Hearing none, the motion carries. Resolution 2026-25, acceptance of June donation of $1,000 is right. That was a $1,000 donation from the Rockville Lions to the fire department for equipment. Any motion to approve that donation?

I'll make a motion to approve resolution 2026-25. Thank you, Brian.

I'll second that.

Thank you, Julie. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor indicate by saying aye. Aye. Any nays? Motion carries. All right, number eight, approval of the June 2026 bills paid.

Everybody got a chance to review those? Make a motion to approve.

I'll second that.

Motion and a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor indicate by saying aye. Aye. Any nays? Motion carries. Consent agenda, approval of Rockville city council minutes from June 10th. Acknowledgement of the building permits. Acknowledgement of the June sheriff's report. Acknowledgement of the month end reconciliation. The resolution 2026-26 appointment of the 2026 election judges. And resolution 2026-27 LG220 lawful gambling exempt permit application from Mary of Immaculate Conception Church, excuse me. So we need a motion to approve. I'm sorry, lifting the resolution of 2026-28, lifting restriction.

I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda.

I'll second.

Thank you, Ashley. Thank you, Jason.

Any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor indicate by saying aye. Aye. Any nays? Hearing none, motion carries.

All right, Cheeto, you're up.

On June 13th, we had our annual Heroes and Bride for Heroes, the benefiting of Rockville Fire Relief Association. And this year we raised $17,100. Rod, we'd like to present you with this check, please.

Great job.

Thank you very much. Thank you for all you do.

It was Cooper's birthday, so. Is that your excuse? Yeah. Wait, wait, wait. I'm waiting.

I'm just getting ready.

Thank you guys for the work you did.

Take that to the bank, right?

I want to catch this.

All right, moving on. Thank you again, Julie. I know you helped with that committee as well. So thank you very much. Department reports.

Point of clarification. So in the consent agenda, this resolution 2026, 28, you didn't mention that. Yeah, you did. Yeah, you did. Oh, Julie. Oh, okay. So we're all close. Okay, thank you.

I didn't catch that. Thank you, Brian. I missed it. Okay, Cody.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. First item on our list is the update on the Lake Road project. Yesterday we had the pre-construction meeting for that project, and the tree clearing for the work is happening this week. The private utility work and relocations is scheduled for next week, so people will start seeing some activity along Lake Road here in the next week or two. And then the actual construction work for the project will start on the week of July 20th. So... you'll see the road being reclaimed sounded like right away on that Monday is what the plan is right now. So, and the rest of the project will continue after that. Is there any questions from council on that project?

That's how I'm working tonight, so.

Second item on our list is the Water Main Extension at County Road 8 and Highway 23. At June's Council, we brought this first to Council and explained the reasons that it was requested from the Fire Department and Public Works. It has multiple benefits, not just from the fire access for water, response times, but also potentially extending that water main to the south side of Highway 23 for potential future additions and extension if city decides to do that. We got some good feedback yesterday from the Finance Committee, and we're looking for council action to see if you're interested in us pursuing this any further.

So the original cost estimate was about $287,000, correct? Correct. We have the money in the fund to do this project. So this would be at 23 and County Road 8. And if we were to do this, it would like to be done prior to the MnDOT putting in the J-turns in 2027, sometime in 2027. This has a lot of benefit to the fire department. Public works also kind of fits our narrative with our comp plan for future development across on the south side of 23. So do we want to give Cody the direction to keep pursuing this, to do this work in the spring or not to pursue it at all?

I think we should do it.

I think so too.

I think for, like you said, you hit all the benefits. One is it's going to spur growth, which we anticipate that's where it's going to go. And two, it's going to help the fire department when that J turn gets done so they don't have to go through that process.

There is one other benefit that I think is beneficial to us as well, as well as if that well in town has to be replaced, we can now put it across on the south side and tie it if we needed to. So I think there's a lot of upside potential for Rockville here.

I would agree. And just so people know that in the future, a development would occur, that cost would get recouped through trunk charges and access fees and so on and so forth.

Well, it would give fire protection for larger buildings.

Yes, like I say, it's a win-win.

Yep. So, Cody, what do you need that motion to be?

I would say to move forward to go look into design, actual design, because right now this is just a very preliminary estimate, you know, to look forward to what feasibility, what it would take to actually get this constructed and completed.

So BNs, we're not going to be doing any assessing. We don't need to go through all that stuff. It'd just be giving you the authority to go ahead and design it and get ready to go out for bid and proceed, right? Correct. I'll make that motion.

I'll second it. So we have a motion and a second to continue that design phase. And any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor indicate by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Any nays? Motion carries. All right, Cody, you want to update us on Agate Beach?

Yes. So as has been mentioned before, we met with the DNR on August 1st, I forget what day in June, but it was in June at the location of the Agate Beach culvert. We got some feedback from the DNR about that they were not really receptive on changing their tune to reduce their scope. They mentioned to reach out to Congress, state representatives, Senator Howe was there with us, and I know that the city has reached out to Congress and all Emmer, Klobuchar, Smith, to get their office to help us out. I don't think anyone's heard back. I think we're still kind of being left in the dark from FEMA on that. So we talked about last night at the finance committee about what our options are, and it's really only two at this time. And one is to continue to wait and push whatever we can to get FEMA to respond and get us an answer as soon as possible. The other option is to, pay for the remaining costs that the DNR is not going to fund out of the city's funds. So that's kind of where we're sitting right now. Until we get anything back and I, to give you an answer when that'll be, I don't know, because we don't get, we haven't gotten any answers.

What does the council want to do? We have We have the funds to do this project, the 2 thirds of the project that are 75% of the project. That's the scope of that project. That being said, like Cody said, the will not back down on their design. So that design is just shy of 800000 dollars. The will pay 25% of the tab. but that leaves us $600,000 out of the fund. So do we want to hold off and wait for a FEMA to finally give us an answer, which yesterday I was promised it would be soon, but that doesn't mean anything. But if we wait for them, that means we couldn't do this project till spring at the earliest now.

The one bad caveat is if we do this, it's going to take our fund balance down to almost zero in our 2015 fund, right? No.

It'll take a third of it. A third of it.

Right, because I guess we're going to bond for that. Yeah. I don't know. I'm just a little uncomfortable dipping that far into that fund at this point. That's my 2 cents.

Well, duty had an idea last night, which I thought about last night after I got home is can we put a weight restriction on a beach? Or can we put the road is closed to only local traffic that people aren't going up and down that road anymore than they are now to try to help because. I agree with everyone what you're saying. And Jim, you know, said it last night. He said, what happens when the other side goes now? Now that road's going to be closed completely, so you're looking at response time for emergency vehicles. They're going to have to go all the way around to get around. Can we put something up to kind of slow the traffic down until hopefully Frina can help us out? Because I have a hard time swallowing $800,000 for a culvert in the city.

We brought up the emergency response stuff to the DNR as well. Their response is it becomes an inconvenience. That is right from their mouth. So painful, painful, painful.

I mean, I don't know. Do we have signs that we could put up to try to slow traffic from going over that location? Can we send something out to the neighborhood asking if they don't need to go that way temporarily till we can figure something out besides? Can we fill it? Someone made the comment last night, can we fill it every day? I don't know what else we can do, but I have a hard time swallowing that amount of money to go out of our savings at the moment. And while we are looking at Lake Road right now at a million dollars basically.

I'd like to see if we have any weight restriction things, the bill is when the project gets done. So then we could get signs for all state here in Rockville.

I mean, if we can, you know, get people to go another direction, you know, in any way, I mean, a sign may help. I mean, you know, I like the idea when, you know, Judy said that last night, is there any way we can try to stop people from going down it? And again, I agree with Brian that this is too much money to take out of our, out of our budget at the moment, I feel.

So Barry and Cody, what's your take on if we do a weight restriction on there and get any heavy traffic off of there? I don't think the cars traffic is an issue, but garbage trucks, school buses, school buses might have to still run through there, but garbage trucks could certainly go around. Fuel trucks or anybody that's making any heavy deliveries out there, they got to go around the other way.

If you do like a road restriction up to like say five times You can get a quad axle dump truck that has 57,000 pounds, but it'll still make the axle weight up to that 5,000 to go over it. I would prefer to see like a no truck traffic sign, possibly. So that means there's nothing under the passenger side. And you know, emergency vehicles can still go in there, but yeah, that's what I would think, actually, versus a weight restriction on our road.

I mean, if we're talking, if FINA doesn't get back to us until September, we've got to make it until spring then. Right.

Well, part of it is the materials I'm getting, by the time we go off for bids and stuff, that's why we put a July 3rd deadline on it. So we're running out of time.

Right, for this year anyways.

Correct. So there is no council action for this Aga Beach tonight, but we can certainly make an action tonight.

Oh, I think we, like Barry just said, I think we should restrict the truck traffic. I really do. Save the integrity of what's there and then wait until spring and see what happens. That's my two cents.

I mean, how much, I mean, plenty, how much are we really going up if we wait until spring to go for bids?

As far as cost?

Yeah.

We've had really good bids this summer. Lake Road had really good bids, so... Right now, it's been pretty steady as far as consistent. What it does next spring, it's, you know, who knows how much it could jump up, but this year it's been really good.

What's the very latest when you do that fix, would you say?

To get it done by the end of the year, that's kind of where the July 3rd deadline we gave FEMA is based on the lead times of some of the pipe materials. Some of them were 14, 16 weeks, which obviously puts us quite back, yeah. So that's kind of why we wanted to answer here in July.

What's the council want to do?

I think it's pretty unlikely, even if we go out right now, that it would get done by the end of the year because the rain pushed back pretty much every single curve this year anyway, so everyone's running behind at this point. I'd be pretty surprised if we could still get it done.

Realistically, Cody, if we made a decision to take that out of our funds today, Could we get it bid and done by November 5th, realistically?

Completed construction? Yes. I was looking at December 1st. Get it done by the end of this year, more like. So it would probably be Thanksgiving, more like, end of November.

I mean, getting that late, we may not get it paved.

Right.

Well, that's what I mean. Or it could be just down by November 5th.

That's why I think we should just wait until spring.

No action needed.

Bill? I have a couple of questions. Can the city with the DNR funds buy the culverts now at the current price? and then we have them if you decide to wait to put them in.

The problem is FEMA said if we buy the materials. Anything. Anything, the grant will not come through. Okay, you just answered my question. Great question, Bill, but yes, that was raised a couple of times, unfortunately.

They can't reimburse back, is what I'm trying to get at.

I do enjoy the culvert, so if we would buy the culvert, And Venus says, okay, we're not going to pay for that culvert itself.

I'd have to look at the itemized.

I don't think you would get anything from them is what they're saying.

We're not going to get anything? We wouldn't get the remaining left of what the work would be? No.

I think the verbiage was that if we started pursuing the materials, that they would bottle it completely.

They basically bottle it right now.

I do think this is the last time we wait, though. I agree.

I got to get it done. So just plan on spring regardless and move forward.

So wait for FEMA, and if they don't come back and start planning for spring.

We've got the whole season to go ahead.

All right, so no action required on that. Thank you, Courtney. And then you want to talk about the resolution?

I can. I guess I don't know what the resolution is. I know we talked about it last night. Is this for the Lake Road bonding, correct?

Correct.

Just to back up a second, do we want Barry to get signs, though, still? Do we want to move forward with that part?

Yes, please.

I would say yes. Okay. I'll make sure we're on the same page.

Thank you, Barry. Thank you, Ashley.

Do we need that in the form of a motion? I don't think so. No?

I don't think so. Okay.

Can I just ask one question on that one? Yes. This morning at 6.15 on my way to work, cement mixer truck came in, went right over the bridge of the lake. Are they going to know that?

That's what the signs are for.

I don't want to get a stop. Your restrictions in the spring are statewide. Everybody knows when they are. Everybody gets stuff done before now. This is going to be in the middle of the summer. So I'm going to come in here. Bring me a concrete.

That's why fair is going to restrict all trucks.

Yeah. Well, they've got to get caught. They've got to get caught.

They've got to get caught. And when we did do the...

When we did... Well, you'd probably have to put something up here, out further, too. I'm just saying, you know, I watched this guy this morning just go flying down the road and it's already been laid out.

When we put the new no trucks allowed north of town, it stopped. Yes.

So it worked.

But it worked here. I anticipate you're going to get somebody that's going to get caught off guard, but that word's going to travel and they'll stay out of there for the most part.

Okay.

Item number four is the resolution to bond for the Lake Road Improvement Project. This was discussed last night at the Finance Committee meeting, and the Finance Committee meeting recommended that City Council go forward to bond for the Lake Road Project. I think the number is on that page. $990,000 for the full amount of that project. It goes in there, right? Yes, it's all spelled out there.

And the reason for this resolution is because if we have to pay for Lake Road, that would completely deplete our road improvement fund completely. So the rationale was to bond for that Lake Road project. Correct. Yep.

I just had a word with you about that. Yes. That's what I was going to talk about. You pretty much covered what I was going to talk about. What we talked about last night, we're going to bond for that one. It's 15 years, $990,000. The interest rate is 3 to what, 3.65%, which is very favorable. And if we save out of cash, we are getting 3.5, close to that, if not the bank.

3.8.

3.8, so it's almost a wash on the interest, okay? Annual payment was going to be an average of $86,500. It was over the toll last night to repay that bond, which will have a minimal effect on property taxes Jason said he factored in about 5% increase in tax capacity per year if the city grows, and about a 3% levy increase is what we've been doing. Based on those numbers, it'll have very little effect on raising property taxes. So it's kind of a no-brainer. That's what we did. And to conserve cash not only for the culvert, but any other project that might pop up that needs a smaller amount of money than a million dollars.

Thank you, Jim. That covered it.

That covered it.

The motion was made by the finance committee to approve this. So I'll make a motion that we approve resolution 2026-30. Is that the correct number?

providing for the competitive negotiated sale of a $990,000 general obligation bond series 2026A. I'll second.

Motion to second. Any further discussion? There's only one, yeah, Julie, thank you for bringing that up. There's a correction that we need to make on this resolution that Julie just caught. So the second paragraph down, it's the member, council members that were present. It has Ashley as present last night, and she was not.

This is present tonight. The change that has to be that Jason's here.

Okay, I just want to make sure because I was reading last night, but okay, thank you. But we have to add Jason to it, don't we? Jason will get moved up.

Since I'm here tonight.

All right, we have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All in favor indicate by saying aye. Aye. Any nays? Motion carries.

I don't know what the idea is.

Anything else, Cody, at this time?

Everything that I have.

Thank you very much. Fire department.

Roger? Yep, just looking for approval. We have worn, damaged, and expired gear, which are boots, helmets, and bunker pants that have expired and we're no longer able to use. and looking for approval to get rid of those or donate them out to Third World.

I'll make a motion to approve donating the turnout gear.

I'll second it.

Motion and second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor indicate by saying aye. Aye. Any nays? Hearing none, motion carries.

Thank you. Thanks, Rodney. Thank you.

Jim, is there anything else now?

Well, we pretty much covered what we talked about last night. Jason did go over some of the city financials, so we kind of understand what money is, and that brought up this conversation on saving our money and bonding with us. So we haven't gone through that. Then we went to the Lake Fond. We had a long, lively discussion on the culvert under A.P. Drode, and at the end of the night, sensing a lot of reluctance from council after there, We kind of said, okay, let's wait. Now we've made some accommodation to try and save what's left. Everybody understands that if it goes down tomorrow, we've got very inconvenience for a lot of people. There's about 60 residents, I guess, right there that are going to have to take the long way out. And the other main concern was fire, rescue, ambulance, and that type of thing are going to have a slow response time. I understand that's a lot of money. $300,000 sitting in the park fund not getting spent is a lot of money. $250,000 for playground equipment to replace what's already there. It's a hard nut to swallow for the people that live on Agate Beach Road who are paying more taxes on their homes than probably anybody in the city, and the city is not anti- to say, we'll take care of your problem, okay? Lean lane, a million dollars to resurface it. It's pretty dang nice with the road when I drove it. We only have half a road, okay? That's just kind of the opinion of the people I talked to this week. But since last night, I'm okay to wait. Hopefully, speed will come through. Hopefully, places won't clog that much next year because, am I correct, the DNR is capping this at $181,000?

That's correct. That's 25% up.

So it's not 25% of some number. It's $181,000 max. So if it goes up by a million dollars, it's not $250,000. But you all understand that, and this is where we're at. The only other thing we talked about last night was the Cold Spring sewer expansion. some discussion of whether or not we want to start raising rates on sewer based on the assumption this may or may not happen. I think in the end we kind of decided that we don't know if and when this is ever going to happen. We have no idea what the price is going to be. Cold spring is They're waiting to get some funding, hopefully from federal, state, whatever. So raising the rates right now after we just raised the rates on grinders 50% this year, I think would be a hard one to sell to people. And I don't think we really need to do it because I think by the time this goes, probably where we'd have to start paying for it, it's gonna be 2032 maybe, I think is what they were thinking by the time we would actually have to start paying. And by that time, that sewer fund, as Steve Perber pointed out last night, is going to have a pretty sizable balance, which could be used to pay some of those annual payments until we adjust some rates. But I was just looking at it. The annual payment, I think, we decided on a $10 million 30-year bond was $420,000 a year. That's the payment every year. And if it has to go on the users, there's 672 of them. I believe that's about the number, which means everybody gets to pay $625 a year just for that. plus the regular sewer. So that's about 52 bucks a month. If you're on a grinder on the lakes like I am right now, we're paying $132.60 every two months. That was the new rate that we just turned this year. We have a 4% increase built into that every year, at least for the next two or three. Beyond that, we kept it up. So if I took it out for four years, took the $132.60, went 4% a year, 4% a year, 4% a year. That's compounding out there. You end up with about $155.10. Add $104 for two months with that $625. The two-month bill on our grinder stations would be $260 instead of $130, $260 right now. So it's going to double our bills. Yep, it'll let you with the full $10 billion. So hopefully it won't. Hopefully there'll be some funding that'll come down, but that's kind of where we're at. And so we're kind of like, let's not start raising our rates again since we just did it, since we really don't even know what the target is. Any questions on that?

Thank you, Jim.

And I know we're in a tough spot on that one. We talked about it last night. I mean, it's in. We've got the grinders. We can't do anything about it. We can't go backwards and go back to septics. They're expensive. but hopefully we can buy some time. It'll come down in price and we'll have a little bit of fun.

What we're seeing- Wait. No. Well, I think Cold Spring's kicking the can down the road as well.

When I talk to their guys, when they come to the hardware store, they're not making any money.

No. They got 10% this year from the feds. Right. All right, thank you, Jim. Public Works, Barry.

Good evening. I got three things on the agenda tonight. The first one we're talking about is approval of the Aztec invoice for street sweeping that was done. The bill went over $5,000 this year, so I'm bringing the council to get it paid. It's $5,428.75. Any questions on that?

Say the dollar one more time, Barry, I'm sorry.

$5,428.75. All right, I need a motion to approve that.

I'll make a motion to approve the Aztec invoice street sweeping for $5,428.75. I second it.

Thank you, Jason. Motion and a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor indicate by saying aye. Aye. Any nays? Motion carries. Okay.

The second thing on the agenda is we're looking at updating our going out to our lift station and doing everything paperwork to more of a digital. We're in talks with Waterly. We're looking at bringing everything to one unit on a iPad so that way we can Download or get all the information rather than run through paper copies. We can also with this. We would be able to send the report directly to the Minnesota Department of health. It also runs. analytics so you can see if your pumps or anything are wearing out over the course of the years. You can see if they're doing more runtime and you know that eventually in the future you have to replace that pump because it's running longer than it should. It'll also go gallons per minutes and you can also use it for water testing. So you can also check your testing and that can also get sent out to the state. Have any big questions on that? It would be 1300 a year and then the setup for the first year would be an additional $1550. The first year is 1550 and then it's 1300 each year after that.

Is that correct? Okay.

One of the wishes of the council. Barry, this will help with some of the labor that you guys spend time, because you spend sending reports and all of that as well, correct?

Yeah, so at the end of every month, we have to take all the paperwork that we have at the clipboard at the lift station and well house. But those go back to the office. Tom has to take all the data, transfer it onto the computer himself. And then he's got to type up the report and he sends it down here to double check the water results with what he has. And then that gets sent to the state versus they would already be inputted and ready to go and take that step out for the water sewer.

And how much time does he spend with that now, that manual process?

So that manual process, I would say probably one full day.

And then with that manual process, I'm assuming there's an opportunity for keying errors as well? I mean, is that literally manual if you're typing in amounts where this would probably be a little better data because you won't?

Yeah, you still go to the sites and stuff and you punch it in and then it's all in your, unlike the laptop, just a computer program file. Okay, gotcha.

It says here on the quote that the pricing is good through 4-31 of 26.

Yeah, I talked to them when they re-sent it and said it's fine.

Okay, perfect.

So then is that $1,300 a year going forward? Is that locked in for a number of years? Or would that be an opportunity where two years from now we're paying over two grand?

Yeah, the wage rate is all based on amount of water that you use. With our water system, it will stay like that unless we expand to the point where we're doubling our water, then the price will go up. Okay. And we can back out to later. Okay.

And that money would come from the Enterprise Fund?

It would.

Is that correct? And that's just the freshwater side? That's not the wastewater side, correct?

You could do either, or it can hook into the SCADA system, too.

So is there additional cost for that down the road?

No, I don't believe so. It said waste and wastewater.

Okay.

Well, I'll make a motion to approve moving forward with Waterly for the first year of 1,550 and the additional years at 1,300. The first year would be 2,850. Yeah, the 1,300 plus the setup fee of 1,550 the first year.

Was that the form of a motion?

Wow.

That's not how I read it.

Is that what they said? I don't read it like that either.

Yeah. First year would be $1,550. Yeah. Yeah.

And then $1,300 a year after that.

Yeah, because they have an onboarding fee of $250.

That's the way I read that too.

Yeah. So the most we're paying this year would be?

$1,550. Yeah. Yeah.

Do you want Barry to clarify that or do you want to?

Yeah, because if you look on the very bottom in the blue, it says the first year, annual, and the one-time setup fee. You can't read that from this angle. It says $1,550.

$1,550.

First year plus one-time fee. Okay. And that's probably my mistake on that one. But I could get clarification too.

So, Ashley, do you want to approve the 1550 and the 1300? Yeah. If there's something different, then Barry will just have to come back.

Yep.

Is that a motion? Yep. I'll second.

We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor indicate by saying aye. Aye. Any nays? Motion carries.

Then the third thing I have on the list is our new plow truck that we're planning on swapping out with Dan's truck, the single axle. It came in and then they gave us a 30-day bill. They're not doing the standard wait until the body gets put on in the plows with the lead times for a tow master. So the price... We have here $124,654, which is the price that we had originally got quoted, for just the truck, and then the body will be later through Tollmaster.

Are we supposed to be charged that $1,500, the tariff charge?

I talked to Bill at Freightliner, and he said apparently we're supposed to get charged that. Okay, thanks. i believe i talked to steve about that too and he said it he's not supposed to get charged and bill said we're supposed to get charged so we have to pay this now within 30 days and i do have it in uh in my savings account for the plow truck so this would be coming out of my savings

in which we knew this going into this when we bought, when we decided to get this right. Correct.

I'll make a motion to approve paying for the truck from the savings account from previous approval. And then, so... I'll approve the invoice as is for the truck from the savings for public works. I'll second. $124,654.

I'll second.

Motion to second. Any further discussion?

Trudy has a question.

You'll have to amend the budget. So if we're pulling that money from the savings, so let's say Barry's budget is $1,500 for example. and add it to the budget so that he still has that remaining portion in his budget.

So the motion has to be approved, take it from savings, put it back into the budget.

And to amend the budget plan.

Is that part of your motion?

Yes, I can make.

And I will have a friendly, yeah, I still second that.

Yeah. So you're going to write that up for us, Judy? Yes. Okay.

Whatever she said.

Clear as mud.

So all in favor indicate by saying aye. Aye. Any nays? Hearing none, motion carries.

Thank you, that's all I have.

That's all you have, Barry. Thank you very much. All right, action items. Resolution 2026-29, authorizing the issuance of credit cards. Drew, do you want to just touch on that again?

Yeah, it's basically approving. You guys are giving us approval on who can have credit cards. And in that resolution, it shows the city administrative finance director, the billing clerk, administrative assistant, public works director, your lead snoop parks, and your lead supervisor for the water sewer, fire chief, first assistant chief, and your fire secretary. this will satisfy the auditors in this in regards to this resolution if for some reason any other department heads like let's say you add another I'm going to just throw up maintenance let's say you have another maintenance that would have to come back to you guys for approval for them or if you wanted to extend anybody in a department And then we just need to notify Belman in regards to what the limits would be. We're going to kind of base it off of what we have at the credit bank.

So do you want the limits as part of the motion as well, or just the motion to approve the issuance of the cards?

Yeah.

Okay. I'll make the motion to approve the issuance of the credit cards to...

Resolution 2026-29. Yes.

I'll second that.

Any further discussion?

Do we have to make anything about the limits on that? No. No.

No, because you guys already have a limit for us. We can't spend $5,000. But, like, for example, I believe Barry's at $2,000. I'm at $500, like Mary's at $500.

Line 8 on here grants the city admin to establish those. So it's covered in there.

And we don't have to redo this after we switch banks either, correct?

No.

Okay. All right, motion and second. Any other discussion? Hearing none, all in favor indicate by saying aye. Aye. Any nays? Hearing none, motion passes. Okay, what do we want to do with the softballs?

Donate them.

Play ball.

I would say keep the new ones, but I would say the old ones, you know, donate. That's my personal opinion because, again, like you said, if we start another league this next year or whatever, why should we put the money out again for it?

Where do we want to donate them to?

I was just going to say that.

My understanding is for the Ricori little league type. By all means.

If it's going somewhere to the youth programs in our area, give them away.

What's the likelihood of a program starting back up?

Pardon me?

What's the likelihood of a program starting back up? My thing is, is I understand Julie's point about new, but why hold on to them over time?

I was going to ask kind of the same thing. Why do we have new ones? Did we buy them?

That was previously when we did have softball.

So they're a couple years old already because we had a softball league and now we no longer have a softball league. Yes. I would kind of echo Ashley's question, then why not just donate all of them and

That was our goal last year. We were going to try to get the Little League youth softball baseball back with us. But one of the members ended up coming back to us stating that they didn't want to take away from Cold Spring. Even though that was our residence here.

How many new softballs do we have that we would be hanging on to if we would hang on to them?

i don't know well if they ever do come back we buy new softballs i mean they're going to be coming out of the registration freeze and everything else right well right i i agree that we're we're worried about a million dollar corporate project now we're arguing over a 200 over the softballs

I'll make a motion to donate the balls, the softballs. Second. Recorded little leak.

New and used.

New and used. Thank you, Ash. Second. And thank you, Brian. All in favor indicate by saying aye. Aye. Any nays? Motion carries. All right. Rockville Fire Relief meat raffle money to the tune of... So on their meat raffles they have here in town, that money gets sent to the city. So there's a total of $14,220 in the fire department savings account. They would like a check issued to the fire relief in the amount of $14,220. I'll make a motion to

for the 14,222, the fire relief from the meat raffles.

Thank you, Julie.

I'll second it.

Thank you, Jason. Any further discussion?

I just want to, and I'm just throwing this out there. So the money that's donated comes from the meat raffles, which is gambling. And under... the gambling control board, the lines can't donate money to any kind of retirement. So that's why it goes to the city. So now the city takes that money and now is going to give it to the relief, which is retirement. Are we crossing a line that we shouldn't be crossing? I'm just asking. I'm just throwing that out there.

But the relief doesn't just pay for retirement. The relief pays for a lot of stuff.

But under the laws of the...

I don't think that was their intent. He said it was going to be used for their fish fry. Yeah.

But it's part of the relief accounts.

We're not responsible as far as the Lions Club is concerned. The meat raffle stuff was gambling, 100% gambling. Correct. And gambling funds can't go to retirement.

And it doesn't because they have two accounts. One is relief for the fundraising and whatever. The other one is for the retirement.

I know this, but we went through this with the gambling control board. The gambling control board looks at relief as retirement.

So do we want to run that past the auditors, June? Just from the center, just so we're not...

I have a question. What's happened with that money prior? Has it gone to the relief prior? Or has it just, where has it gone? It's down in this... Okay.

So it's... The lines have dominated that for fire equipment. So it's sitting in there. We have notified the finance when we were coming up with, you know, there was what, $1.2 million truck coming. That was part of that $14,000 was part of that money that was going to pay for the truck. The only thing that we came through is for that truck.

So based on what Brian's bringing up, I think it would be worthy of running it past our auditor before we make that motion. Is that fair?

Yeah, I can question them because they're not our auditors for our relief. It might be that the relief might have to end up checking with their auditors too, but I can run it past ours and see if she can answer that.

I know, Bill, you were there. What did they say the other night about it?

They wanted to put it into a CD or a money market for interest. That's what they wanted.

Yeah, and that's to help pay for equipment and for the pre, getting ready for the fish fry, that kind of stuff.

Right, so my question is when they said equipment, what equipment is the relief paying for?

Well, whatever the city doesn't cover. Isn't it, Bill, a lot of times?

Yes.

So whatever the city doesn't cover or their budget doesn't cover, then the relief kicks in and... pays for what they need. So if, you know, when they get time for the fire truck to get here, we're short, you know, let's say $50,000, the reliefs is going to kick that in. That's from fundraising and whatnot.

Can we approve it under the stipulation that as long as it clears? Or do we want to wait?

I mean, they're getting interest on it 3.8% already.

Correct.

that money because we put it in the savings to get it .

table it and bring it back next month i think it'd be best if we tabled it just and asked the audience i just don't want to get into a bad situation i appreciate bringing it up ryan i i didn't think about the gambling piece of it and so i appreciate you bringing that up let's just protect the city and the lions are helping out as well correct yes and and that's why the lions club donated it to the rockville fire department knowing that it's the relief guys doing it

Or whatever, they're the same guys or firemen. But this was a way that the blind club or the gambling can give the money away and not have any issues. And if we put it back, I just don't want that to somehow cloud the situation and get everybody in trouble somehow. I just don't want that to happen. Yeah.

The money, you're right, the money is making money. It's earning interest now at 3.5% or whatever that is. So let's just table it and let's just find out what our auditors, what they say.

So you'll have to pull the motion back. So then I'll pull my motion back on the fair relief meet, the $14,250.

and change the motion to table instead of? Yeah, to table, please. Okay, I'll change my second then.

Okay, Julie and Jason make a motion to table. And do we have to vote on that at all? Or do we still vote? We should, yes. Okay. Okay, a motion and a second to table. All in favor indicate by saying aye. Aye. Any nays? Motion carries.

All right, Bill? Okay, on the discussion for wage study, as you all know, we changed the wage for the new administrator position on the recommendation of the hiring unit that we've hired on SCSC. And then that brought on us looking at positions like our temporary mowing person, and then the positions here at the city. The last time we did a wage study was 2017. I would recommend to the council that you approve a wage study to be done sometime this year and then however you wanted to do it either or afterwards or every year in three years. But I think we want to, for employee retention and just right across equity and fairness for our staff, I would recommend

So all you have right now is a rough idea of roughly $5,000 for that study.

Yeah, and we would look at David Dromer and Associates. We could look at having them give us a bid or so to speak on what it would cost us.

I think it would be good to have couples that we can compare to.

Sure. And then what budget item would that line item, where that would come from? Just administration budget or general?

So you'd have to appeal a little bit of money from each one of those locations for the study.

Okay. All right. Yeah. If you can get a couple of estimates, that'd be great. Okay.

Thank you, Bill. Thank you. Do we want to approve the seasonal person tonight? Very.

That's an add-on for your... Yep, so the 1AAA. Do we want to approve to go all the way to $23 an hour for that temporary part-time person for the rest of the summer?

Have we considered the idea of maybe sharing a part-time guy with Cold Spring? Because they hire part-time now too, right?

They have three guys that mow full-time. Oh.

Our mowing is four and a half days.

No, I know, I know. Like I said, we can look at it and maybe do it next year too, but it's just, we're trying to get a few big projects done this year.

And right now you're saying that we paid summer help at $19 and Cold Spring is doing at $23. I'm open to meeting halfway. I don't think we need to go up to $23. You know, that's just my personal opinion, just because I know what tellers make. They're making, this guy's making more than what a teller does starting out as a part-time teller. So, to me, I'm willing to meet between the 19 and the 23, just to see if he'll pull anybody in to hold us, you know, until we get through the season. But, again, some are helping you guys are paying more than you're paying a teller right now. So, that's where I stand on it.

So do we have to vote for advertisement for another person, or do we have a candidate in mind, or where we stand on that?

We're going to have to put on an advertisement again.

I know. If anybody gets. Yeah. Didn't Cold Spring get roughly 26 people?

This spring, yeah, they got 26.

But a few of them were under the age of... Yeah, they were high schoolers. And then we only got the two, so that's... And the one that applied, he was looking for more full-time, right?

Yeah, he was looking for a full-time gig with benefits and everything, not just seasonal help with no benefits.

I'm struggling with the time of the year it is already and going through the expense it's going to take to find a part-time person for roughly 30 to 60 days. I'm just wondering how much that's really going to help you guys out, especially if you have the same type of issues you had previously. Because I know Dan was pouring a lot of time into the mower than maybe what it was worth, so that's just my personal opinion.

How long do you anticipate you need summer help or part-time help yet?

For mowing, it usually ends up in the end of September, usually October, when everything gets shit-stopped.

Nothing's going to grow the rest of this week or next week, because I'm in the 90s. I'm just kidding. I'm making a joke. Sorry. So we're not watering it, you know, so. I do agree with you, Ashley. I don't think you're going to find anyone because you have, even if they're 19 going back to college, they're going back to college in four weeks, basically.

It's a thought, so. Yeah.

I do think if you want someone to experience mowing, it has to be at least at that 23, because you get any experience mower, I mean, they're starting off at $25, $30 an hour. So it's not out of the question.

And it's seasonal, right? Correct. It has an ending date on it. Correct. If you're going to advertise it, on the bulletin board and stuff out here and the website, it doesn't hurt to jump into 23 to see if they get any attention at all. You may not get anybody.

Yeah, you could do like a 19 to 23. That depends on things too.

Yeah, I mean, they have experience. I don't have a problem, you know, if they have experience mowing, you know, city laundry or whatever. I don't have a problem paying them 23 dollars, but it just... if they have no experience. I mean, yes, people can mow yards. I get it. I get that they can mow, but.

I'll make the motion to put the wage between $19 and $23 an hour.

I'll second it.

Motion and second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor indicate by saying aye. Aye. Any nays? Motion carries. And then the one C is the sheriff's contract. Do we want to accept the contract as is or?

No, I think we, I just wanted you to know that they're indicating that the wage will stay the same. And then I'll do a study of the call volume and then come back to you folks.

Okay. Okay. So they haven't issued us a contract yet. They just said the wage, the rate would stay the same.

Okay. All right. Don't have to do anything with that.

motion anything else judy i'll make a motion to adjourn then second second second all in favor indicate by saying aye yeah