Council - Regular Meeting

Good job. I see him. Yeah. 30 seconds. [Music] Thank you.

I saw this. Okay. The same thing. They're the same thing. Okay. Maybe just like a multi. Thank you.

You can give one to a friend after Okay. 6:30 I'll call the meeting to to order. Roll call. Council person

here. Council person Bendle here. Council person here. Council person Johnson here. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

There's no public input tonight. So, we will go to uh seek a motion to approve the consent agenda. Just to just to clarify, there is public input tonight, but no one has public input. Just so they know, it wasn't it was on the agenda. Okay. Make the motion consent agenda. I second moved and second to approve the consent agenda. Any more discussion? If not, we'll vote. Council person Bendle, yes. Council person Hubert, yes. Council person Johnson, yes. Council person,

yes. Uh, staff reports. Public works has a written update. Ben County Sheriff's Office has a written quarterly update. fire department Mitch. We get a second term this year. So, I'm back. Um, those of you that know me, don't know me, my name is Mtown. I'm an assistant chief at the uh Township Fire Department. And you guys have a printed report, quarterly report for Q3. uh calls for service. So we're at 107 incidents through end of Q3. Um really kind of puts us right on par where we've been probably as we head to the end of the year as we have been for previous years. Um 47 EMS incidents, 12 vehicle accidents, three carbonides, one gas, three vehicle fires, plus one a night um before the meeting. Uh, seven false alarms, five public assist 18 grass fires, four brush fires, five building fires, two trash fires. Um, any questions about calls for here today? No. Uh, a couple things we're working on. Uh, as of current time and recent time, uh, fire prevention is going on soon. Um, we usually put together a really good showing at all the schools both here and in Center Point. Mark Smith, one of our captains is the leader of that group. So, we'll have a group going to both schools, both cities again this year. Uh, also this

year was a year for EMR research. So, if you remember, we had several people get certified as a emergency medical responder a few years ago, five years ago, six years ago. This year was the year for research and u as of last month, 100% of the people that we had that held EMR certifications are reertified. So, 100%. So, that is nice. uh next year will be EMT reertifications. So we have probably Q4 26 into Q127 will have anybody that had participated in achieving their EMT B status will be having to reertify at that time too. So you know it's cyclical the hits keep coming. Uh we are currently sitting at 23 staff members and uh we have a couple of applications to sort through so we may grow. We'll see how that goes. And then uh the only other thing I have is I'm going to pass this back to uh Trent or pass over to Trent actually. Um just for some general conversation on further discussion as to our participation with fire department with the site prep for the pollinator park and how that's going to come going from a fire department level. So that's a project that's on the forefront for us. Project training opportunity whatever you want to classify it as it's multiple things. Um I'll give you the floor back.

Yeah. Uh, sorry. Did you have a question? I just said thanks.

Okay. Uh, I would like to point out one of our captains, Mike McFarland's in the back row there. He is central to our training program. He's got some things he's going to speak on tonight as part of the report as well. Um, I guess what I have to speak to tonight from the fire department's behalf is uh the leadership of the department needs some clarification of some events surrounding you to Union Avenue. Um, we've been drugged into the center of what appears to be a lot of misinformation and false information regarding that property and I'm here to get some information, collect them as to what was going on there so we can make an informed decision as to what our role is going to be in that going forward. Um, the Vana Fire Department's obviously a nonical organization that's tasked with providing public safety and emergency services. Um, we take that seriously and a lot of the things that were getting put out there in recent times were inaccurate and we're going to look to set that record straight tonight. Jennifer, would it be possible to get a recording of this meeting afterwards? Um, a lot of this stuff takes place outside of open meetings where we speak truth and we talk about facts. And I think the fire department would like to have a permanent record of this,

not only for our own records, but I know Mike's had to engage in some conversations that were uh way out of bounds, but he may find this useful as well. Um Scott, I'm going to start I got to start with you because you're on the council, you're an elected official. Um there's somebody else out there that we need to look to to help answer some of this so we can get all of our facts straight. Let us know. We'd be happy to engage you. But um you enlighten us as to what drove you to go up there, what started this? I just had a few calls from citizens in town saying one of them was that underneath the vinyl side there was asbestous. I told them there was an asbestous inspection, but I will go over there vinyl sighting. All I did is look behind it. I said no, it's wood siding. It's painted more than likely possibly less paint on it. Um, that is my concern as a lead paid renovator. It is something that's toxic if it's put in the air.

So that that that's my only concern. It was nothing against the city, nothing against the fire department. I was just looking out for because it's only a couple blocks from the school. I just know from my training what lead does, lead paint does. Um, I'm going to guess you're going to tell me no. But where was the information coming from? Would you tell us who who was reaching out to you? Uh, I I'll tell you one of them just because he was the first on property with me and it was Arman. Okay. But he he had somebody reach out to him and that's when he reached out to me. Okay.

Um, at what juncture did you decide to move past even asking the fire department if they had plans to burn it? The city the city closed on that property here. I didn't tell the team was recorded 18th of September and the email complaint went to the DNR on the 22nd. Correct. It's about one business day. We haven't even had meetings since then. So, I don't know. I'm a little confused as to how this got to the point it got to. I I like I said, the people that brought that up to me said that it was going to be a controlling burn. I didn't know anything about that. Like I said, I'm just looking out for the safety of the people. If you had to do it over again, would you handle it the same way?

I mean, it would probably go a little bit different. Yes. Okay. Um, the email was forwarded to me on Monday, excuse me, Tuesday morning. The email went off Monday evening. I got a phone call from the DNR. Stand corrected. We jointly reached on a phone call cuz I didn't understand what was going on. I reached out to him and he got back to me. we began having dialogue about property at Fort Wood Street, which was news to me because I didn't know that the city was acquiring for Wood Street. Um I did indicate to the DNR that we were talking about two Union Avenue and then I addressed uh

just for your record um the city did not purchase for Wood Avenue just so that that's on there for you that Yeah, we did not purchase that. There's been some uh confusion out there about that as well and that someone's there renovating that property. Okay. Because I've been asked several times how much we did not purchase for. Right. So just to clarify what they're in the public I think that's important.

Yeah. Um the lighthouse behind right by the pond. So, one of the first parts of the conversation I had with the DNR was is uh everyone's aware there's a difference between a controlled burn and a training burn because it keeps getting referred to as a controlled burn and that there's different laws regulating those and different testing practices are all clear that the fire department is not doing a controlled burn. If the fire department does anything up there is a training burn. DNR was confused about that. We clarified that. that I guess the other part of it is is um if you'd heard fire department was going to burn it. That was the first time I heard that.

Why was it automatically assumed by everybody that was up there looking at this that the fire department doesn't have a burn permit process that we have to follow and that there's testing that goes along with that? Because again, we didn't even have time to meet internally as a department to even discuss whether we were going to have a training burn, let alone get to DNR and start the paperwork. Mike is holding binder back there. What that looks like when we do a control burn burn permit NFPA burn plan or works property owner leases. And this conversation then moves into how does the fire department not know about this? This is what I keep getting asked. Well, how did the fire department not know they had to do this? I I have nothing to do with that part.

Well, it you kind of do because this is where it starts from when you go up there. Um we again we weren't given even an opportunity to address it. Right? You follow me here? And where all of this took this to put fire department center in a conversation that we had nothing to do with and at times leading into whether we were competent in how to do a controlled burn. We are we know we're well aware of what that requirement is. Um, I also understand that you went up there and looked at the paint. Yes. Did you test it? No, sir. Are you certified to test it?

Uh, just by identifying it. Yes. Like what method do you use to do that? Um, I mean, if I did test it, I use the test test. I have there's times on my job site that I have to test for lead paint. Do we do you have any results from that? No. So you're saying it has lead paint but it wasn't tested or you know it's got lead paint by a different method. Uh just by just by looks of the paint it looks like lead paint. Again we're asking this information because we ultimately as leadership and fire department have to make a decision whether we want to be part of this because this isn't uh been exactly a straightforward um operation here.

I can show you this isn't a picture of that house. This is another house I'm working on. When paint on my phone, but when paint has it looks like an alligator texture, cracking stuff, most likely that's lead paint. Correct. But are we assuming we're making an assumption then at that point when you were up there that it was let me make because that's not how it was g how it was conveyed to the DNR or how it was conveyed back to the fire department. Okay. Well, I guess I didn't I had no contact with the You didn't have contact with the person that did?

No. So, how would the person send know that? I I said that it looked like lead paint for my opinion and that they took it from there. Was that person one of them that asked you to go look at it? I guess I'm strong trying I'm trying to I'm struggling to draw the distinction between how you ended up there looking at it and how the DNR was involved with it before we even had an opportunity to reach out and talk to him. I guess was where I'm trying to get to. Scott that I I don't see from our perspective where some of that look like it was being very straightforward or a little shady.

I don't see how it's being shady. That's my personal opinion. People ask my opinion on it. I give my opinion. And other people around town talk. They do certainly. I've heard from a lot of them. Um, yeah. But like in the police report, it said that the samples were taken. I didn't scrape anything off that house. I just And the police report said that samples were taken off that. Oh, I don't have that. I don't But that that's what was reported. That's what the officer asked me. I said, "No, I did not take any samples off that house." You did not lead or asbestos? No. Are you certified for those for lead? For testing it, not I can test on my test.

Well, the reason I'm asking is because going forward, it took us a long time to get test results back. As a matter of fact, the city and the fire department still doesn't have test results back. When when I do my when I do my test, if it tests positive, then I have to send it to somebody else and they have to come out and confirm. The reason I was asking is because we've been weeks on both of these tests. Maybe you're better resource to help us get some of this stuff expedited through than do you have that kind of like what lab are you using? I I get it's the state people that certify me for my lab renovation. So if you take a sample and send it to the lab the lab like what method it's at?

They would actually I don't send it to the lab. They would come out and check it themselves. Okay. All right. So I I can do a visual and then we also have a swab where you can you can mark it by take that swab and a swab caller. Then I have to call the state and they come in and do their testing. So it isn't until that point that it's 100% confirmed. That's when it's Yeah. You and that just for clarification again that did not happen up there. No sir.

Okay. Um, so there's really no results to discuss, correct? We don't have anything definitive here outside of what the asbestous test was done prior to the city acquiring the property, right? You don't have anything else? No. Okay.

Um, I think we're trying to paint get a little better picture of what's going on here. um internally that I I think got us drugged into something that isn't necessarily our deal, but overall um I went here last month, but I understand you were against the property purchase. Correct.

Yes. And it wasn't anything to do with that is because the reason I was against it is the city's purchasing the house. It's in my thing is that money is supposed to come from the second phase of or however you want to call it or the second grant that they're getting or that we're applying for. Well, now we're spending money on a grant that we don't know that we're going to get.

Um, fair enough. That that's that's an answer I want to drill down on. The reason I'm asking this is because the fire department is trying to decipher if we would move forward with doing training fire here. or is this going to continue to be an issue at the council level? Are you are you in favor of if there's that if we get to follow are allowed to follow our process and it comes out um that the DNR is okay with burning it. Is there going to be more issues that we need to expect laying out here in the weeds? Okay. is not as long as everything's done by and I know you guys are going to do it by the books, but as long as they confirm that there's no lead paint that's going to harm my like I said my concern is there's a school two blocks away.

Well, that's all of our concern. I mean that that is what we're here to do. We are here for public safety. And again, that's where some of this I think from the fire department level we find a little bit uh uh concerning is that I I don't know where anybody would have got the idea. We would have been out there at 11:00 on a Tuesday morning trying to do a a training and none of that information was even again given an opportunity to come out. We're we're all volunteers. We all have jobs to be at. We're not burning things when schools are in session. We have in the past burn property that was right on the school under the parking lot at their at their request and did a training burn there. So we're very uh in tune with the safety of the the children of the school and the neighbors.

Yeah. Um would it be your preference it got tore down or would it be your preference it got burned? If there's if there's no harm to anybody it could be burnt. But what's your preference though? Preference pour down. Okay. I just want that out there. I mean, it's nothing against a fire department. It's just that's Yeah,

that's information we know cuz I started this off with fire department, not a political organization. We're not interested being part of political games or campaigns or I got you moments. Okay? So, that's why I'm asking to clear the air because clearly not everybody in this room's on the same page as what's going on there and uh unfortunately has put us in a spot that needed to be clarified. Um, you know, I'm going to Mike's got a lot of information put together around this uh the value of the training and how that would actually look. And I'm just going to close with seeing it this way as a blanket statement. I don't nobody in the leadership or the membership the fire department um believes this was all just done by hand have a chance and poor timing and we believe that it was a much bigger uh game of a political I got you unfortunately to I don't know whether it was to try to catch Gary and Jennifer and the counselors something to that effect but that's what it appears to us to be and that's why we're asking these questions because that's not what we're here to be part of that is not what we're going to be part of.

No, and I understand that a lot of people will do that. But my concern was looking out for the safety of the people as was ours, but we were never given an opportunity to explain that. And then here we are. That is our job, the safety of the community. The council member never gave us an opportunity to lay that out. We didn't even have a chance to have that discussion internally on what that looked like, when we would do it, if we could do it, what value that property had to us. And look where that went is my point. And I'm I'm looking at you because you're sitting next to me and you were the one who went got the sample. But I would say to any one of you that were part of that, but I'm saying wrong there. I did not get a sample.

Right. Okay. Fair enough. Yeah, you're right. I didn't get a sample. So I just want that state report. I did not take a sample. No, that's a fair point. You did not get a sample. That should uh put a lot of this conversation to bed there itself that you did not get a sample. You're not certified to collect the sample and you did not send one to the lab. Correct. All of your cleans fire department would do as part of a burn permit process. Glad you took it upon yourself, I guess, to to do it, assuming we didn't. But here we are because now we've spent the last week talking about why the fire department didn't do that.

I apologize for that. There was no that was not my intention. Like I said, I was looking out for safety people. I just know even on home inspections, yes, the bank did home inspections. My dad's a realtor. I have seen houses that banks have passed on like asbesus inspections. old houses if they have that the paper tape around the duct work that's asbesus sometimes they don't look at that sometimes your seagull or asbesus I I don't are you confusing a home inspection with the asbestous test that were done by the lab on an I didn't know an actual lab done test

we we just clarify that was shared in the public meeting that there was an asbesus done and what the results were we shared that in open session before the property was purchased. What I've heard from other people, it is it was done by the bank and that's that's all I heard. The bank doesn't do an asbestous test. The bank during the conversation before that property was sold to us. One of the requirements was that an asbestous test was done before the city would acquire it. Did they do a lead test also? Because I I thought that

there's not a requirement that there needs to be a lead test to purchase a property. That should be disclosed in the sale of a house though if it has lead paint that that is supposed to be disclosed in the sale of a house.

Um, just before you're done, Trent, for your record, I would also like to state that with the high concerns apparently that were out there. The mayor did not receive a concern. The city administrator did not receive any concerns that came into the office. The deputy clerk did not receive any information that came into this office. And it's my understanding no one contacted the fire department with a safety concern either. And again with the short amount of time that you said from the time that the city posted on this topic to the time that there was a complaint made to the DNR, I just want you to know also that none of us here at the city um took any complaints either. I would also because the deputy county sheriff that came to speak with me about this, I just wanted to be on your record that it's my understanding that I did ask once we found out who did go to the property. I did ask that there was a conversation had with whoever the two individuals were that went on the property because they were not authorized by the city to be there nor were they contracted by the city to be there. And also um the other piece of information is that actually I'll take this to share with anyone on the council. The city council's role is to act on policy and legislation. It is not to act on daily operations. Period. That's the role of the mayor and that's my role here or it's Trent's role in the role that he has for the city. So I would recommend that if there are concerns or if you receive concerns from anyone in the city that there is safety to our citizens, I would expect that it come through this office, it go to Benton County, it go to our fire chief, but it go to someone else.

But please do not act on your own. You're not authorized to do that. And Benton County also said you are not authorized to do it. because the city can press charges. It's my understanding. I would hope the city is not going to do that, but I would like to reiterate that no one is authorized to go on city property. It is my role to do that to uh contact Benton County because we had a serious theft on city property not even a week and a half before this happened. So, if someone goes on city property, you're darn right I'm calling Benton County. The fact that it happened to be two individuals that I did not know who they were, it's my job to do it anyway and report it. And everyone in this council was notified that we had a serious theft on city property. You didn't receive an email or you did.

Yeah, but I didn't. So, aside from from that, what my intent that those are city issues that uh you as a council need to sort out, that's not what my role in this discussion from the fire chief's perspective is, but what my role is is to get information so we can make an informed decision about what's best for our organization. Um there's a lot of parts of this that um raise cause for concern on our end and um I I I to the rest of the council I don't know what our decision will be whether we proceed with it or not regardless of what the test results are at this point because I think I think there are more things at play in the reasoning behind what went on up there than just that. I think it's unfortunate the fire department was put squarely in the center of it to the point that we had to feel questions about our confidence on what we know and what we do not know about doing control burns and uh that's where we're at. That's where I'm at from the position of fire chief right now. There's two other members of the leadership here. I know Mike's got some things he wants to say um as well as part of the fire department report. I think I'm going to close on on that and turn it over to Mike unless some people from unless council's got questions for for us.

I do have one question. If you if this does pass, when would you end up doing the training burn? Just just out of curiosity because if it's like on a weekend or something, I kind of actually would like to watch. So if if we were to do a burn, um we probably would love to train in the house for a couple months period just in general. Okay. On on several other familiar layout go through some of that. So, and then when it would be burnt, it would be burnt probably on a Saturday or Sunday. Not probably, it would be a Saturday or Sunday because we all work. We all have jobs. Be a Saturday or Sunday. Yeah, that's my because I've never at this point it would be So, in reality, it would be sometime this winter weekend. What's the difference between a control?

That's defined by law. The fire department does training burns. The state of Iowa allows and and agrees to and works with fire departments for the value of training for the purpose of training to burn a structure in a controlled setting for that reason. And those requirements are slightly different than what they are for a controlled burn done by a business, a city or a county or an individual. They're different different things. Controlled burn is stripping a structure down, mitigating all of the contaminants and burning it like staff. down training burn is the DNR agreeing to and working with the fire department to to burn the building in a controlled setting and just just so like Mary and Cedar Ravens they don't go do control bird but can they do training bird a lot of a lot of the 2008 flood homes were done as training I'm just curious because we had a work our company's property is the cedar red it's actually thanks They they let them do training there, but they didn't let him do any muring on that.

I'm This is a perfect perfect opportunity for Mike to jump in. Uh Mike is actually on he as a Cass firefighter for his full-time job. Would have some good feedback for you in that regard because I know they did a lot of that after the 2008 floods went through. But and as far as I I could speak that I just know Cedar Rapids had did a lot of them after the city bought out a lot of those down there in the flood flood area. They did several of them. So he can answer that more specifically. I'm just curious because I know when we asked about we actually let them use it for training where they cut whole road and smoke smoke train but we wanted them to burn it down. They said they cannot burn it down because they're just regulations.

I I mean Walker's just done a couple of them in the last six months, six, eight months. They've just done a couple of them. Minton's done several of them the same way. Uh when they had the CN house areas and flood plane over there after 2008 they've done a lot of training burns over there. Their fire team was just over here not that long ago talking about that. So a lot of communities are doing I can't speak Marian I don't got going or what specific that they might have had an exposure issue there too where they didn't feel like they could comfortably burn it without putting another piece of property in danger. I can't I don't know. Um, so my name is Michael McFarland. For those who don't know me, I'm the fire department here. As said, I fortunate enough to do it for a living. So I get to be a kid for for my job. Um, to address your questions about Cedar Rapids specifically. I can't talk with any concrete knowledge about what their process is or why they do or don't burn structures. That's our training division. They are in charge of whether or not we do training burns on structures or not. I can tell you in the past probably three years, maybe two years ago, we have burned a structure out off Sea Street. Um I know we have a lot of what we consider acquired structures we use for training varying levels of what we can do on them. For example, we have one right now where um they are going to be renovating it. So it's very non-destructive. throw ladders, you can't flow water in it, etc. To the other extreme, it sounds like one that your company had where it's getting torn down or whatever. We can cut holes in the roof, you can break them windows, we can do whatever. All of that is subject to asbestous testing prior to it. I don't know if that's maybe part of the reason why they told you they weren't going to burn this one. Um, because it has to be asbestous has

to be remediated by DNR regulations. That is a big stipulation. So it may be quite frankly maybe a financial burden that they don't want to take on and if the the owner of the property isn't willing to do it they say okay thanks for letting us use it but we're not going to burn it. Um so again I can't speak to that I can tell you that yes people around the state do training burns of structures all the time. Um to to set the record straight, uh some people may be aware there's this the Facebook conversations going on that this narrative that has been put out there like Trent kind of alluded to insinuating negligence on behalf of the fire department that we weren't going to test for this stuff. We don't know what we're doing. What standards was the asbestous testing done to? I want it on the record for everybody here. Um there was questions about what does the EPA say? What does Iowa Health and Human Services say? We could go on and on. Do you want to know what the tax code says about it? Like where do we draw the line? Okay, like Tren said, we've done these. Okay, we have we have a binder showing all the work that we do for these murders. Okay, the DNR has all the the stuff about it. Okay, I have the asbestous report from Iowa Environmental Services. Okay, I'm not an asbestous dude. I'm going to trust paying a company that does this for a living is good standards. Okay, it has been given to the DNR personally and he is very okay with that report. Okay, he has no questions about the standards uh to which it was done. Okay, I've got a bunch of stuff. If anybody really wants it and doesn't want to go find it themselves, I have a DNR fact sheet with all of the regulations what you have to do. It spells out the difference between control burn and training burn. Okay, I have the Iowa administrative code that references with highlights of pertinent

parts. I have 40 CFR which is code federal regulation for anybody that doesn't know is also referenced in there highlighted parts. And I also have an example of the notification to the DNR that you have to submit for a burn. Okay. Yeah. Can I just get a copy of that when you get a chance? Absolutely. Yep. Thank you. Yep. So again, to set the record straight, the DNR He's the one that governs training burns in the state of Iowa. It's not the EPA. It's not Health and Human Services. It's not any other three-letter agency. It is the DNR. And as long as we follow their regulations and are up to par on everything, that is the letter of the law we need to follow. Okay.

Um as far sorry um as far kind of alluded to the training value that we get out of these. Okay. So again, everybody knows we're 100% volunteer here, okay? Everybody, some guys work for the city, some guys work in IT, some guys do whatever. Okay, these structures, again, I'm going to use the term acquired structure because that's what what I'm familiar with. Acquired structures do not come around for volunteer organizations hardly ever. This is I'm going to say the second one to my knowledge in the the 10 years that I've been on the department that we've been able to use. Okay, it it doesn't happen. They are of paramount importance when it comes to training. Okay, there's only so we have a great fire station. It's not set up like a single family residence. Okay. So, when we're doing any kind of fire attack or search or any of our trainings, we're playing makebelieve in a big concrete floor building that just it's not suitable. We do the best we can, but it's not suitable for effective training. Opportunities like this are absolutely the best training that we can possibly get to stay ready for emergencies. Okay? And unfortunately, I would I wish we never had fires, but we have fires. And unfortunately, we have them in our mana right here with the people that we all love and care about. Everybody on our department is wholly committed to being the best that we can possibly be when our phone or our page or whatever goes off and says there's a fire, unknown victims, people inside, whatever it is. Okay. Things like this, the acquired structures like this are what allows us to truly be up to par on our trainings. Okay, it adds realism to it. To name

just a few, I literally jot it down in six seconds the things that property specific we use for search, fire attack, ladders, vertical ventilation, building destruction, writers rapid intervention team. If something goes wrong with firefighter, they call mayday ma mayday. We have a separate team. I'll call it, it's not a team, but other firefighters go in and get one of our own out. Okay. Forcible entry and victim removal from windows to name a few. And I, if I sat here and thought about it, I could probably come up with three times as many things that can be done all in that one house. Um, make sure I get all my here. Yeah. So, um, and the last thing I'll say about that is if, uh, if we have a big issue with acquired structures and the fire department's involvement and whatever with them, if the council would prefer, I would be more than happy to put together a proposal for a standalone fixed training facility for the Fire Department to present to you guys if that would be a better option than using things like this that come to our disposal twice in a decade. Okay. Thank you. Thanks, Michael.

Thank you.

Building inspector has a written report. City administrator verbal report. Um uh my verbal report was simply uh most things that have been sent to the council, but the regrant phase two. Just wanting to let you know that it has gone through the second phase of the application process and is now moved to the second round of review at the select committee which is very promising. um submission. We still have not heard back yet for the um SRT grant which was 55th Street Trail Meadow View Drive. Um and I have not actually gotten on the website to check that or so I can do that. Um you would see in your packets city capital projects that are happening. Um Bing Miller Lane is near completion. Um reef grant phase one is underway as well. the water storage tank, water improvements, uh, continuing and going as planned. Uh, to Union Avenue property, I think we've talked about that. Um, comprehensive planning update, uh, the city staff did an intake meeting with ECO on September 18th and the planning zoning committee, uh, commission, sorry, also did an intake meeting. Those were about 90 minutes a piece with ECOD. Um outstanding issues. Uh 305 Wood Street nuisance property has been escalated to legal municipal infraction. Um obviously I also updated you then on the incidents for the North Lift station theft as well as two Union Avenue incident. Are you getting some quotes from the

I have not yet but yes um I also had information after the north lift station theft. I had sent out um the email notifying you. I will actually get a quote for security for the lift stations as well as um our wells. Thank you for that reminder. Any questions? Uh, library and parks have a written report.

Uh, library did I think parks just has that there was a I think they have a meeting scheduled for the agenda. [Music] I have it on the agenda from that was printed online October 14th. Thank you. October 14th, I think was the date that was given to me. So, it's on your online agenda. Thank you. I was having technology issues since Sunday. So, thank you. Um, okay. So, I think that's it for staff reports

and city engineer also has a written report. We'll go to old business. Consider resolution 2025-147 amending the city of Urbana water and sewer connection fees with update updated city of Urban building permit fee structure. Okay, just really quickly, um this was discussed at the last meeting and I have provided the resolution for um residential, commercial, industrial for both water, sewer per the suggestion of the council to be $300 each. And then um I updated also the fee structure to reflect the $300. And unless there's further discussion, I didn't have any other information.

And above the 99 or 950 floor, correct? Yes. Yes. Make a motion to approve resolution 2025-147. Second. It's been moved and second to approve resolution 2025-147. Any more discussion? Not vote. Council person Huber. Yes. Council person Ben. Yes. Council person Johnson. Yes. Council person. Yes. Mayor John's here. I didn't know if he wanted to give any specific upd [Music]

and all the payouts I think were on the consent agenda and I didn't receive any feedbacks from your payouts. So those have been approved as well. Yeah. Question for me. Thank you. Sorry. Just want to make sure. Thank you. If you need to go. Okay. Moving on to new business. Maggie Burgerer with Spirit Financial.

Good evening everyone. I'm Maggie Ber Financial. This is the time of the year where we talk about your tip and debt report. We've done a little color change up just to kind of mute the colors. Actually, it's a Microsoft thing, right? They've changed their color scheme. So, we're are diverging things. Um what we have here in front of you, the first section and kind of our our muted red section is our general obligation debt. This outlines any go debt um that the city has outstanding. I will draw your attention to your newest loan which is on page two. You do have, if you'll recall, we did part of uh your SRF loan, your state revolving loan. We did part of it as a general obligation. The reason that we did that was that you could pay part of that debt with local options sales tax. If we did it as revenue debt, we wouldn't have been able to document that local option sales tax coming in to pay that debt. So, we give you that debt st uh structure. That interest rate is a 3.37. That bond is callable. So, SRF loans can be called in or paid down, paid early at any given time. We give you the total principle. total things and interest. You do pay one of your existing debts um in the yellow section with tip revenues. And so we show that. We also show that local option sales tax. That brings us to that larger column there near the end with the arrow drawn to it. You are levying uh probably in 27, fiscal year 27. As you approach that budget season, somewhere around $219,000 of debt service um going forward. Um, we go on then to our orange pages. This outlines revenue debt. And again, this does not count against your debt capacity. We have that 2010 sewer debt that is almost paid off because you have been paying that ahead. So, that one was not scheduled to pay paid off until 2030. You've paid a couple of payments

ahead. This was also a debt, if you'll remember, that was highly backloaded, which meant there was a lot of principal pushed to the back of this loan because of the the necessary rate increases. So, um it has been great for the city to be able to pay off those final two maturities. Uh you have been doing um some levying to hopefully pay that off even sooner than that fiscal year 28 um based on on some extra collections from TIP. I remind you, we are collecting some TIFF receipts to help pay that off early because you had to do those sewer improvements to be able to grow the community. It was it was a forced uh we'll say sewer project for you to be able to continue and to grow. So, we felt like that growth uh could be captured to pay that debt. Biggest takeaway from this section is that in the total property taxes, it's zeros. Uh you can't levy any property tax dollars for any sort of revenue debt that you have outstanding. it has to be paid with the revenues of the system um whether that's water or sewer. We go on to our purple pages. Um this is talks about our rebate agreements outstanding. So we have one residential rebate agreement outstanding. It's the Elwick number third edition that has homes that have built that has valuation that has started to be collected. The city again remember you've entered into an agreement with the developer. They're going to do something. In the case of residential, they're going to put in infrastructure, water, street, sewer, storm water. You're going to then rebate them back a portion of their taxes. Residential does have low moderate income set aside or LMI at a percent um in Benton County of 35.86%, meaning you can repay back about 64% of your collected dollars uh to the developer. The Elwick fourth edition has not started. there are no homes built.

So, that one we just leave there knowing that that there's an agreement in place, but there's not been any growth in that. So, um we'll just wait to see if there's growth in that and it may be that that one gets amended out into its own agreement to give itself a new 10 years if and when that development starts. The other new one on your um on your sheet here is Click Stop. This is the fourth agreement with Clickstop. we entered into that agreement yet um here this year earlier in the springtime. Uh that one will start paying back in 2027 and is relatable to improvements and expansion um at that facility. So again, they're growing your valuation. You're going to re back a portion or all of those taxes um of that new growth for a set amount of time and and in a set amount. Uh we go on to our yellow pages and this is where we show that the 2020 B bonds were being abated or being paid with TIFF revenues. Uh and so we've shown that here. Uh and then we transfer that money that that column right there uh relates back to those first pages where we had that yellow column basically saying we're bringing money in from the tiff to pay out a geo debt because you have that ability to do that. it was identified upfront. That project sat in a tiff district, so it met all of the requirements. We bring in your in uh your rebate agreements here in purple. And then this is where we've been overlevying um in the uh sewer or over levying the tiff to collect some money for the sewer pay off. Um so again, we're hoping to just pay that debt off a little sooner than not. We just continue to move that number every year as we know what you've been able to pay down on a little early which has been great. The far right column and then we've got an arrow drawn there to fiscal year 27 by December 1.

You have to turn in your tip asking to county. So this is what Jennifer uses to be able to confirm that she's got all of the things necessary on her report to the county and she's asking for the necessary dollars. our green section of the report. Uh we're going to look at column number two. This talks about debt capacity. This talks about your ability to borrow general obligation debt. The city has an actual property valuation of $161,356,000. [Music] That is a growth of just about 710 um of a percent. So just under 1% pretty flat but but pretty comparable in the rest of of the state right now because a year ago if you'll remember everybody's valuations went up by 35 maybe 40%. So uh we've seen a very flat uh growth rate actually in some cities. We've seen a negative growth rate. We assume that has to do with some people um uh fighting their taxation and and maybe winning that at the county level and so some of that valuation rolling off. Uh reading straight down again that $161 million gives you a statutory debt limit of at 5% of 8,67,000. You have general obligation debt outstanding including that SRF loan of about 1,485,000. uh you will um and that was I'm sorry prior to you issuing uh the SRF loan. We also have those rebate agreements outstanding of 30,922. You'll pay back principal of 285 and then we added the $1,250,000 after the beginning of the fiscal year. So by adding that you're at uh in column number three approximately $2,450,000 of debt capac of debt that's outstanding down there at the bottom of column number two remaining debt capacity that's not obligated is about 5.5

million or about 69% that's a really healthy amount even given the fact that you have issued geo debt recently the only reason we had the conversation that you could comfortably issue that geo debt was that you really had a lot of debt that capacity available to you. If this number would have been significantly lower, we probably that not would not have recommended that that go SRF be done and that meant it would have just been more on your water um rates to your citizens. So, we're happy that we could fit this one in. Most of our cities tell us they don't want you to they don't want to borrow more than 80% of their capacity. So, if we take off the $1.6 $6 million number, it leaves us uh the capacity that remains of about $3.9 million. So again, still a very healthy amount. I don't foresee the city borrowing in a in a geo format um up to that amount anytime soon, but it does give you some capacity in case something comes up. And I I like to say that it's not bad things that come up. It could be good things that somebody wants to come to town and they're looking for you to improve the infrastructure around what they're going to build and bring you valuation and that might give you the ability to borrow some money if necessary. We look at column number two of our blue section. This is our last section. Uh and this is again fiscal year 26. Uh this is all the tip value that has grown over and above in your original and your combined tiff districts. So, anything shown here is anything that's grown in the city in your tick area since the inception of that area. We have commercial property um of about growth of about 9.8 million and then you've got really residential property of about 3.1 million and that's really attributable to those housing developments that that have taken place through the years. Um that gives you about $10 million of taxable valuation. We take that times

the tiff tax rate of $29.36 and it creates about $34,000. You are again collecting um not only for your outstanding go debt, you're also collecting for tiff rebates, LMI set aside, um etc. So with that, I'd answer any questions that you have. It's a whole lot of information. Sorry. Things look good for the city. We anticipate um hopefully that interest rates in the bond market will start to come down. All of your debt is fixed. So the interest rates that you have are fixed rates and will not adjust with the interest rates in the market. But we anticipate that um as the Federal Reserve moves on interest rates over the next nine maybe 18 months that we'll start to see interest rates in general and the bond market start to come down for any of your future needs. [Music] Any questions for Maggie?

Thank you. Clear as my right. Thank you. Thank you.

Item B, resolution 2025-149 to set the date for public hearing for budget amendment number one for fiscal year 26 budget. Okay. So, um budget amendment uh typical probably for this time of year. Um I made a brief note there. Obviously, um the areas in culture and recreation will know a little more about whether or not the city receives the phase two of the grant. Um I am budgeting which remember this is a budget amendment so it's to amend the budget in case a the two union avenue needs to be demoed rather than a burn uh by a training burn I should say. I want to go ahead and budget for a quote that we received that it would cost $12,500 for the structure to come down. Um, we now have our TIFF actual numbers from Maggie. So, we have $995 in our um, TIFF rebate for awake number three is what we call it. Um, and then the enterprise, we will be doing a budget amendment. Back in May, the council approved. We had the large maintenance repair for the well number three. So, we need to do a obviously that was not in the budget in April. So, we need to do a budget amendment for that. And we also need to do a budget amendment for the um city clerk and the excuse me, deputy

clerk and city administrator now have to take the city's insurance. Um, in the original budget, we planned for one of us in case there was a change in the insurance and we budgeted for it. But now that both of us are required to take it, um, since we were choosing not to terminate, uh, we need to plan for a budget amendment uh, for another $19,275 for health insurance. And again, this meeting we could go into more detail about the actual budget amendment and the numbers, but that information doesn't print for us from the Department of Management's website until we actually set the date for the public hearing, which is resolution 202549.

You want to do that for the next meeting? Yes. So 2025149 would the suggestion is to hold a public hearing on November 12th during the regular council meeting at 6:30. Motion to approve the public hearing resolution 149 November 12th 6:30. I'll second. Then move a second to hold the uh date for public hearing for resolution 2025-149 on November 12th. Was it? Yes.

Any more discussion? No. Council person Mo House. Yes. Council person Huber. Yes. Council person Johnson. Yes. Council personnel. Yes. Uh item C, consider the following for the board adjustments resolution 2025-151 to appoint William Richard to the board of adjustment.

Yes. And I sent an email regarding applications that we received. I'll make the motion to approve resolution 2025-151 to appoint William Richard to the board of adjustment. Second been moved and seconded to approve resolution 2025-151. Is there any more discussion? Not vote. Council person Johnson. Yes. Council person Huber. Yes. Council person. Yes. Council person Ben.

Yes. Okay. 2025153 is the same and it was included in the same email to council regarding applications. Make a motion approve resolution 2025-153 to appoint Mitch McD. I'll second. Been moved and second to approve resolution 2025-153 to appoint Mitch Mcdana to the planning and zoning. Any more discussion? If not, we'll hold. Council person Huber. Yes. Council person Ble. Yes. Council person Johnson. Yes. Council person Hoff. Yes.

Item E. Police Department discussion. So discussion items that I included in the memo which I actually started this memo like September 22nd. Um, and this is simply just the information that I was able to gather uh regarding the 2017 Ford Explorer that this city has for currently for the police department. Um, as part of the police fleet, we also have a 2020 Ford F-150 as part of the police fleet. 2017.

What was that? 2020. Oh, okay. The Explorer I think is 2017 and I think the F-150 maybe is the 20

2020 I think. So, I just put together um if this is part of a discussion that it it can happen with the information presented. I was able to find information. Um, North Benton is not necessarily on uh the discussion, but we have had some conversations and that um they are actually looking for a vehicle uh that could be used for um ambulance operations like a paramedic service vehicle or response vehicle. I'm not really sure what you call that. Um and we actually every quarter uh the information has been shared that the police department does have three vehicles. Um and whether the police department stays goes and there's a discussion about it. Um the actual data uh has shown that for years we've never had more than one officer on duty at a time. So fiscally I do not believe that there's any reason that the city would need to keep three vehicles. Um obviously the Tahoe is the newest vehicle. Um, I would recommend that the city keeps that vehicle into however long it is that we have police discussions. Um, the other information uh the F-150 truck, I've uh had some conversations with the Urbana Fire Department and that there I mean I don't understand why if we have these vehicles it makes more sense. Um, I don't think the city is interested in getting money for the vehicles, but we could simply transfer a

vehicle from the police department to the fire department. Again, that's not a pressing issue, but it would be a resource since um that would still be owned by the city. It can simply be transferred um to a different department. So, I've just provided information um how many miles are on the vehicle. Uh these also we need to keep in mind that Mayor Benson, you're going to have to tell me again what that's called when it's uh outfitted for a police vehicle. Pardon me. When is it called when it's outfitted for a police vehicle? Um well, you're basically right. I mean, they just they take all the lights, sirens.

Yeah. Radars, all that. So it's upfitted. No, not outfitted is not the word, but not up. Up. Upfitted. Okay. Um, they they actually used even a different word than outfitted. Receptor. Oh, it's an interceptor. Thank you. Sorry. Interceptor is the word. That's the That's the place package.

I don't know what it is. It But it doesn't necessarily add value to the vehicle, unfortunately. Um I don't want to say it devalues the vehicle but it doesn't add value from the research which I've done. Um so I just I feel that we should obviously we wouldn't be disposing the disposal of a the truck in consideration would be um using the method that you would actually just transfer. It's called a capital transfer from one department to the other. Um, and the other one is just continuing to have I think I had two meetings maybe with North Benton. Um, and simply just the continued need for additional um, equipment there and further conversation hopefully down the road for how that might look for. Um, I think I included the recommendation. I included what you could find for market data for the value of that vehicle for both vehicles. Um the Explorer it looks like based on the mileage and the interceptor that it's possibly between 10 to 15,000. Um and then based on the F-150 again the conversation there was simply would we would the council want to consider a transfer of a capital um piece of equipment from one department to another so that it's still being utilized it is paid you know paid for

um and could be utilized and I did provide two resolutions Obviously, that is simply for discussion purposes so that if the council were wanting to take action on anything, I wanted to make sure that I was able to gather as much information as I could.

Yeah, we've been paying insurance on the vehicles to set idle over there for a long time and I think it's in our best interest to to do something with them. uh fire department I think would be a great asset to the fire department don't have to pay anything which if they had to pay something it'd have to go through city revenue and also township revenue and and it's a it's a wash we donate that vehicle or transfer

transfer it would be a transfer and per the 28 agreement with the fire department I would have to look back at it it's several years old but it does discuss in the assets of the um fire department and a percentage of share gain of equipment that would belong probably to Pulk Township, a percentage that would have um belonged to the city, but by simply just transferring the capital asset, it remains within the city. What would the fire department primarily see that as used for?

You want me to speak to that? Go for it. So, I can tell you that we're not going to have any sort of hurt feelings or be bad about it if you guys say no, we're not going to do this. But, um, and we're not actively budgeting or looking to put a fleet vehicle in like that into our building with the opportunity that is here. This is how we would use it if we decided. So when we pull a vehicle out of that building, um, our EMS, EMR, EMT, first responder vehicle is a for pickup. We fit four people in it. Um, traditionally, we fill that truck when we go to a med call. Um, I would say eight or nine times out of 10, we leave people at the building that don't fit in that truck. Um, people that would come to a call would get in a vehicle that probably at minimum if it got wrecked on a highway or ran into $100,000 to $150,000 or was a pickup. And if it was one of the big trucks, we'd be in here talking to you guys about a million half dollars. So for overflow purposes of people and more hands are better on any call um regardless of what the call is. I could see us using it for that. Um the other side is mutual aid. We run a lot of surrounding committees with our mutual aid agreements. Um the less big trucks that cost big money on the road um is better for everybody if they stay in the building unless absolutely have to. especially if we're going outside of a fire district. So, those are the two places I can see using a vehicle like that for just more bodies. And then we do have a lot of overflow uh off of our primary apparatus that if we do run a car accident call or we do run different

calls, you know, trucks are jammed full of stuff. So, if we can make room to put some of those oil spill kits that we go to Casey's for when somebody rips the hose off the pump or you know, things like that. Stuff that you have to have, but maybe we don't need to have it on the primary apparatus that's going out if we had something else put in it. So, is it a an absolute need? Absolutely not. Um, could we utilize it and would it help us? Sure. But if you say nope, we don't want to do that, we you'll never hear from us again about it. So that's our two cents I guess.

But you guys do receive mutual aid calls for just manpower only. Correct. We do. And so you'd have a vehicle. So the truck that we take for that five more people.

Our our primary mutual aid truck is holds five people. And if it wrecked, got ran into, broke, you'd replace it and it would cost you a million half dollars. We own it. Doesn't cost anything right now except maintenance and insurance and upkeep and and all those things. So, and it's a good truck. So, it's just one of those things where why put it out there if you don't need to put it out there, right? So if they're just calling for manpower and water, we'll run a tanker and then we'll fill that truck with people today. If we had something else, we would take something else that was not disposable, but more easily replaceable that we put away.

So yeah. Yeah. Right. So budget. Okay. Um not going to jump up and down if you say no, but we can put it to use if you want to transfer. You guys, I'll do that. We're all here when Brooks and I were talking about how we've been working on the state values for our apparatus and trying to manage what those things, you know, our primary apparatus. You said the one is coming soon to being out of service.

Yeah. You're talking, you know, we manage those values of what those hits cost. You you try to evaluate that with the exposure, ensure that stuff at a a value. Uh to Mitch's point, yes. But ultimately the fire department's response when asked about that was the city feels that it has value that pickup has value either monetarily or otherwise then they should certainly pursue that. If they want to see it get used and have it stay within the city and um be there for whatever comes down the road and not completely get rid of the vehicle. The fire department would use it instead of letting it set over there and decay in the building the way it is now. But the long and the short of it. So what's the age of your mutual aid right now? 2003.

2003. Oh, okay. It was So it is in a secondary apparatus right now. It's not our primary. Was it a former grasshopper? No, it was our primary apparatus. Oh, okay. It's not the No, it is our engine. Oh, okay. Yeah. So when we go most of the time they're asking for water manower things. Okay. So on that pumper what would be the estimated replacement cost if it was that one just that million half dollar that's a million or well thousand for a pick. Yeah. Okay.

So like our EMS truck we run out. It's a four-door F-150. It's got lights and sirens and all the things, but if you wreck that thing, you go, "What's that F150 cost today?" $70,000. Right. So then, no idea, right? So you go, you go get a decal and you get it up with those lights and you do all the things you need to have $100,000 all day, every day. That truck is already outfitted with sirens and lights. It has everything on. The only thing they have to is radio, right? It's got radios in it. Okay.

Have to take the decals off and put their decals on. Yeah. So, um, talking about apparatus, some of you guys have paid attention to anything going on at the fed level with committees and different things. Um, there's a committee right now in section that is talking about small volunteer fire departments across the United States. Uh, and how most of the firetruck manufacturers have bought each other in the last 10 years. And so now there's a borderline monopoly on price and availability of those things. So when we purchased our primary apparatus and we took delivery in 2017, um that truck I think was I'm going to say without any gear on it was just under $600,000. If we went and bought that exact same truck today, um probably 1.6 1.8 eight and you know, same truck. Nothing different. Nothing different. Um, you know, as we head through things, we'll time goes on, we'll be having to talk about those things. And I remember being in here in 2015, I think, starting a conversation about my fire truck, how much it was going to cost. And we had a hard time getting everybody to the place to accept that, you know, half a million dollars or money was going to be acceptable. Well, next time somebody comes in talking about that, it's going to be could be a million and a half or$2 million. So, it's not it's a big capital layout. And you know what what's primary? Is it 15 years?

15 or 20 years. 15 or 20. So, once you have one in service for 15 or 20 years by NFPA guidelines, it needs to come out of primary and go to secondary, which is what we did in 2017. Well, now we've got 2017 and it's 2026. 15 years primary and five more.

So when you move it to a secondary reserve status, you get some extra years to use it. So if we don't have to run out and replace one because something stupid happened, then this would be a good opportunity to a good cheap insurance policy, I guess, if you will. Thank you. Thanks.

So, I'm good with the one going one of the fire department, but I don't think we should just give more than a vehicle. I think that needs to stay here because if you do bring the police department back, they need a backup vehicle. Can't just have an officer and what happens if the dog gets Yeah. or something, right? So, I'm fine with them taking the wrong way. That's no big deal. But I don't think Ben County or Ben even it's a forprofit business should be a free. Oh, that was not the recommendation. Sorry. But if you look in here, that's why Either way, I don't think they should. Yeah. But just so you know, I included the market value in here for it. And nor did they ask for just to clarify. Okay.

Okay. Yeah, that's I'm fine. Drop a couple. Yeah, I have no problem transferring that to the fire department if you guys that would help you guys out easily. Is that a resolution on the 150 then? Yeah, I make that motion to approve resolution 2025-150. I'll second. Been moved and second to approve resolution 2025-150. Any more discussion? Not vote. Council person Ben. Yes. Council person Huber. Yes. Council person Johnson. Yes. Council person holds. Yes.

That said, I do think that I know there's that that explorer and the top quite frankly just sitting there. We was there some discussion of having the explorer be used more as a municipal vehicle things or We did talk about that at one time with these things sitting there. probably worse more of they need to be driven. I try to take them out and drive them once in a while, but then there's times I forget and uh but they need to be taken out and driven, you know, once every couple weeks and it don't always happen.

Yeah, I guess it's something we can chew on. I guess I don't disagree that depending the uh you know, next budgeting year with respect to the police department meeting. You said we're probably have two vehicles that nothing else. I'll take a motion for German motion to move the second to adjurnn. All in favor say I. I. Just for the record. Okay.

Okay. It's happening now. I have no idea. weekend. You guys have got to remind me to shut this thing off.