City Council - Regular Meeting

the meeting to order. Uh got to take care of some housekeeping here before we get into the uh the May meeting. I need to call to order the April recess meeting. And as far as I know, we do not have any business left over from that. So, I need somebody to make a motion to adjourn that meeting. Motion to adjurnn. Second. All in favor say I. I. Okay. We then call the May 27, 2025 meeting to order. Welcome everybody here and thank you for attending. Um we do have a quorum. Um Councilman Roberts is in Florida, I'm told, which seems like a mighty flimsy reason to miss the city council meeting. you know, a trip to the beach that just doesn't seem. But, uh, I'm glad he's getting that opportunity. Think he's with some family members. I'm glad he's getting that opportunity. All kidding aside, if you would, if you'll bow with me, we'll have a word of prayer and then we'll get into our meeting. Our father in heaven, we're thankful for yet another day of life and the opportunity to gather here today. We're thankful to see all our friends and neighbors here tonight. We pray a blessing on them and their families and on these people that sit up front uh to make decisions. We pray that you'll bless them and their families. Lord, we are mindful that we just had a uh a holiday of remembrance. We want to continue to hold those families, lift those families up to you. While they may be proud of the service of their loved ones and and what they did, I'm um sure that they still miss them. We uh thank you to live living in a free country and for those that have made it that way, have gone on before us. We ask now that you bless this meeting and go with us and forgive us of our sins. Amen.

All right. Uh got a set of minutes from the meeting we just adjourned. [Music] Y'all ready to act on those? Is that what you're Yes, ma'am. That may be the easiest motion we have all night. Yes, sir. Is there all I got a motion in a second? Discussion. All in favor say I. I. Opposed. Minutes are approved. This is the part of the meeting where we have uh set aside for public comment on any anybody that would like to address us on uh anything. Now is the time to do it before we get into our uh agenda items. I have a public comment uh from Miss Gobble, the secretary. Yeah. From she couldn't be here, so she asked me if I would read this dur. Yeah. So this is from Sarah Goble. She is the chamber secretary. She said the dead land the dead tree desperados were extremely happy with the setup during the train robbery. Um she that went really well. They look forward to coming back in September. They want to thank the council and the water town police as does she. Update from the chamber. The Watertown Chamber has had an executive meeting since their last regular chamber meeting. The new chamber website is being worked on and we'll have a link from the main www.watertown.tn site. Our summer events are being addressed in I think the address in the Watertown Express. Social media and posters are about to be made. Our summer events are Stars and Stripes and Squirt Gun Parade starting at 400 PM. Contact for this is

Dana Dow, followed by the city fireworks. The chamber voted on giving the city council $2,000 towards the fireworks. The July 19th is the Watertown Music Festival and August the 30th is the Bluegrass Festival. Both events co-chared is Brian Wilson. The local collective will begin having live music on their patio Friday, June the 6 from 5:30 to 7:30 through the end of July. On Friday nights, Jason Harmon is planning on speaking about our summer events and the radio on behalf of the chamber on May the 27th at the Kman Walker show. There will be no square closures of any kind for these events. The parking in front of the gazebo will be blocked off marked off for seating the morning of the music festival and I will remind all the square shop owners of this in advance. Thank you Sarah Goble, chamber secretary. That's good report. She's a great lady. I'll address the fireworks a little later in the meeting. Oh, okay. That'll go to Miss April, the city recorder. Okay. Anybody else? Yes, sir. Come on up, Chris. Uh, Chris Ferrar from Hamilton Hardware. Just wanted to follow up from uh parking discussion we had over the last couple months. Kind of finally talked with chamber folks, some businesses. So, I'd kind of put a little proposal together. We had talked about the idea of having some uh timed parking spot, something like that. So, I had passed it along to Mike last time just so you'd have it, but I just wanted to make it uh public before y'all. So, the idea was and now that Randolph's open, it's even better downtown. So, it's packed downtown right

now, which is great. Um there's a lot of cars and limited parking. So, it's been uh Saturday was great for them. got a lot of people in, but it really showed uh for us because of the type of business we are along with some of the others just being able to have that timed parking spot allotted so that we don't have cars kind of taking up some of the spots all the time. Uh so the idea of the proposal was that we have five to six spots around the square that are just at a 30 minute time limit, something like that. Um, you know, we can kind of place could place those according to what some of the business needs are that use that kind of time frame. The bank, um, the hardware store, the drugstore, some of those kind of places, smoke shop, they have all have folks coming in and out kind of thing. Even the coffee shop kind of a thing. Um, and then, um, you know, we just had some ideas of where they could go. They could really be kind of up to the council. We'd place a sign that could just say 30 minute limited parking or something like that. Uh we'd ask that it would be Monday through Saturday from, you know, 8 to 6 or something like that. So that later in the evening, the spots would obviously be available for the long-term parking folks. Uh and since currently there's not a lot of downtown business on Sunday, there's no need to really have that there. Um, I don't know that in talking to the chamber and some of the businesses that um, I guess the enforcement side of that would be up to the city and the police kind of a thing. Um, we really wanted it so that if we saw someone park there, we would have kind of the backing of the city to go out and say, "Hey, would you mind?" Uh, rather than having to have the police out there patrolling it and moving people, that kind of thing. It just gives us the backing to say something. So, um, outside of that, it was just kind of really, you know, those couple things. We need a couple signs posted and just have to have a decision on where it would be. And then from there, uh, the discussion I had with the

chamber and kind of council was, you know, maybe we make a joint communicate to some of the businesses saying, "Hey, as we get busier, as some of these things happen, the business owners or employees could try to park on the outskirts or over in the bank lot or something like that and leave as much of the business parking spots available to customers as possible. Uh, again, it's a work in progress. It's just kind of a first step idea. uh but kind of wanted to put that before you those specific things for you to kind of think about and because it's already starting to become you know kind of an issue not an issue in a bad way issue in a good way but something that would be helpful how do you want us to proceed on well I guess the the question would be just deciding is that okay to do can we assign some of those uh and then coming up with a you know a idea of which spots those should be around the square and down Main Street. Happy to make a suggestion on those if you would like it to come from us. I guess the council just needs to decide. Can we do we want to can we assign certain spots to that and what does the actual um uh language need to be, the time frame, you know, the the hours of the days, how many days a week that just needs to be clarified from the city side because of how late in the month this meeting is. We're going to be back here in 3 weeks from tonight. Can you bring us something specific about Sure. which spots and everything and let's just do it. Consider it as a package. Yep. Happy mailing it. Yeah. Okay. Um, so I work during the day so I don't see this. Uh, how many like spots would you say are people parking in that it's long? Like they're staying there? Well, it it it's um it's a little bit suggest suggest subjective and it kind of depends where you are. In our case, uh from the hardware store standpoint, there is a

because of the road on either side and the garage across the street and there's a a single spot that is close to us. Um now again, it's public parking, it's not our spot, but uh we're not in a storefront that has three or four spots that are kind of right there. So, with the Mexican restaurant right there, uh, with the event center right there beside us, and now with the restaurant on the other side of us, all three of those are kind of long-term parking, if you will, an hour or so or more. Um, now that's might be different than right around the bank and the flower shop and some of the the drugstore right there. Those people are coming and going, so there's might be more activity there. Um, so it's a little kind of depends on where you are, I would say, in the square. Um, and again, it's not it doesn't always happen, but sometimes we've the it kind of came about because we had three Saturdays in a row where someone parked right there um, you know, for several hours. And and not that they can't not and it's not our spot. I'm not asking for that to be assigned to a specific business. It's just because of how it's laid out there. That's a particular issue area. Does that make sense? That's your question. Okay. Because I feel like most of the things on the square are within 30 minutes. If our business owners not work on the square, most of our businesses on the square are within 30 minutes. You're in and out, right? I mean, you're usually in and out within 30 minutes. Right. I I don't want to say it's just a problem on our end, not necessarily. I understand the restaurants. Yeah. So yeah, the the restaurants in that area do tend their patrons tend to stay in the parking lots longer because it takes more than 30 minutes to eat milk. Sure. Sure. Yeah. Anyway, any other questions or I can clarify or I'll come back next meeting with? Yeah, if you bring you get it to me a few days in advance, I'll get

it out to Okay, happy to do that. Yeah. And we'll get it on the agenda. Okay, great. Awesome. Thanks for considering that. Appreciate it. Thank you, Chris. John, I forgot to ask. We're on live, I guess. Excuse me. Are we Are we going out? We on out in TV land or wherever we are? Yeah. Okay. All right. I for Sorry, I didn't ask earlier. Anybody else? All right. I'll go ahead and close the public comment then and we'll move on down through our reports. Uh Chief Holland of the fire department, I believe you're up first tonight. Good evening. Uh I would like to report and I'd pass this along to the mayor Joseph Decker did, but uh we were awarded a grant in the ballpark of $40,000 for um rescue equipment. It's the state of Tennessee uh rescue squad grant. And what that's used for is equipment for our um rescue apparatus. It's very equipment specific, so it doesn't cover, you know, anything that we need it to. But, um, and that would kind of be, uh, just an example, uh, struts for vehicle stabilization on a wreck or different extrication equipment, uh, helmets, PPE, those types of things that deal with that. So, that's a, uh, major blessing and a good thing uh, for us. Um, as far as the report, uh, we had, uh, 49 calls this past month and, uh, that's an increase there of, 14 calls from, uh, that same month a year ago. So, um, that's about all that we've got. It's been a quiet month. And when does the grant when will you get that? Uh, I'm not sure. I'll I'll ask

Joe about it. He's uh he's tracking all of that and so letting me know if we need to include that next year's budget or this year. Yes, sir. So, yes, sir. We can do it. It's free money in it. No match. Yes, sir. It's a no match. No match. Whenever they want to send it, we'll be glad to. Yes, sir. But I'll I'll get with him and I'll get that answer for you. Okay. Question to the chief. Full roster? Yes, sir. Training? Yes, sir. A lot of things to be proud of in this town. One, I'm certainly at fire department. Very proud of them. All right, no other questions. Chief, uh Dale, I think you're up next with a sewer report. Uh I don't have anything for you guys this month. It's been kind of quiet on my end as far as that goes, which is probably a good thing. Um you guys have anything for me? questions for today. Looks like you skated through tonight. All right. Thanks, David. Chief, you're last tonight, but you'll be first next meeting. Yes, I can. You have any questions for me? Report self-explanatory. You know, calls are up. Service a lot of things going on. a lot more a lot of things are happening especially uh with our LPRs and stuff. Uh we we've gotten several stolen cars lately. Uh some silver alerts. So, you know, they work. Sheriff's department using me. Matter of fact, they called me today a couple times. So, building that relationship back. Not that it was ever tarnished, but just now that we have some tools

that help them as well. Okay. I do have one question. Yes. During the summer seasons, do you get does or does your department get a heavy number of calls from the drive-in? Not really. Not much anymore. We used to get a a whole lot and um they the last time we we got some they figured out that there's cameras at the DTC building. So it does you know even our cameras getting in it it deters a lot of mischief. And then you know I put my trailer out there and that eliminated every call because you know then there was no donuts, no speeding, no acting crazy. So, due to some of the things that we put in place, the calls have been basically cut in half or none, we had a lost wallet found the other day. That's the first time that Barry's called in 11 months. Okay. Thank you. Good. Mhm. Other question? I've got one totally unrelated. I hope you don't mind me asking. What about the boys? How they doing? Amazing. Um, Cole has come back from Beast of the East. He pitched basically a no hitter. Uh hit one off the fence 380. Got a triple. So they're doing well. Fixing to go to USA. We go to USA carry next week. I'm not going. I have to be in a chief's school. But he goes to USA. He's been invited to that. And the other one's throwing pretty good. Good. Yeah. So thank you for asking. Sure. Glad to hear it. A lot of things in life important. Baseball is one of them. Uh they to me they are I said my I said a lot of things I said a lot of things don't don't get me in a mess. I do well enough on my own. You don't love my kids.

All right. I I better get the chief out of here before I get in trouble. That's always saying that you know. Yeah. Kids and family first. That's right. That's right. Appreciate it, buddy. Yes. Thank you. All right. We'll move on to some items of old business. There's people here tonight about several items we've got and I just when I do my agenda, I just sort of list them. No, while I do list them in an order, I there's no particular reason for it. So, I'm going to go ahead and deal with the folks that are here on planning and zoning and annexation and that type of thing. So, where's uh Christopher Lawless? You ready to go on on the Parkinson property? Okay. All right. The first item is the Jodon Parkson property. There's an exhibit in front of you of what it is, but it's part of uh property map 110, parcel 58. And the part that is being requested for annexation is 71 acres. In December of 22, there was 1.25 25 acres of this already previously annexed into the county. Um I am going to address that in the plan of services, but specifically in front of you today is the 71 acres. It will come into the city of Watertown with an R1 um zoning designation. They did not request any sort of reszoning. So anything annexed in comes in at a R1 designation. Um other than that, I can have um have any I can answer any questions you have on this. It does come to you with a positive recommendation from your Watertown Planning Commission. And do I remember correctly, Steve and Christopher, that we have to take that portion of the road as well that's in front of it? Yes, I will. Um I will work on the annexation notice to get to the

road commission on your all's behalf for that. Okay. All right. So, it's here on first reading and second reading uh will be scheduled for our meeting on June the 17th. So, uh have no problem. The planning commission recommended this. It was unanimous vote and uh have no problem recommending this to you on first reading. Yes, I need a motion. I make a motion to accept. All right. Is there a second? I'll second. All right. right now is our discussion about uh what we're doing. We have a representative of the Parkinson family here with us tonight. We're glad to have him here and always good to see you. You ready to vote? All right. All in favor say I. I opposed. That part carries. Now we got to approve the plan of services. Yes, sir. The plan of services. The previous plan of service was also adopted by the city council in December of 2022. I don't have that ordinance number. I'll get that and I'll make sure it's updated up to date for you. But the terminology that was put in that last one is that it was to be completed within a 2-year time frame. That is still sticking to this. Um, so this new plan of services is for the entire 1.96 acres as opposed to just the 71 acres that you just annexed. Um, I would probably still recommend that the two years be put on there and the two-year expiration that just um relinquishes the city of Watertown if those services weren't rendered that um you weren't on the hook for the sewer provision if it wasn't completed on the developer's behalf because there was public um there was acknowledgement that they were to complete those. I know that wasn't the the issue had changed, but the new plans of services since the most

recent one has expired is for the entire 1.96 acres that had been annexed. Okay. Question of Christopher. I didn't think to ask you. Did you want to say anything? No. I just thought you might appreciate being here. Oh, I do always. And I think you all I think you always He said all the points that Yeah. that that you guys need to hear. Glad to answer any questions. And the public hearing will um you will have to have a public hearing for the annexation and the plan of services. You smart enough to realize when you got the horse sold. Anybody ready to make a motion on the plan of services? I'll make a motion to approve. Second. Got a motion and a second. Discussion. If not, all in favor say I. I. Opposed. All right, that's approved. Now you want to go on to the building permit fees and that type of thing. You got some Christopher's got some representatives of his office here tonight. Yeah. Chris Richardson, Michael Cooper. Which do you have an order that you want to do them in? Cuz um one is just the adoption of codes entirely. The other one is just your permit fees. Uh, it doesn't make any difference to me unless y'all have a suggested start with the codes. Sounds like Okay. Um, Chris Richardson is here. So, if you all ask any question that has anything to do with codes, he's going to have to answer that. I just wrote the or uh ordinance with his help. Um, and this is modeled directly after the resolution that the county passed to adopt codes. It brings um you all into spec for the 2021 IBC and the 2021 um IRC. Um so that' be commercial and residential on that side. Um I know we had talked a little bit about only doing

residential, but I think you all leaned on adopting everything all at once. Um the building inspector, Chris's department, will oversee inspection of that. Um, as far as the way it's done now, right now the fees the fees are paid to for proof of permit to the city of Watertown and then everything is brought to my office receipt-wise. The aft receipt and your building permit fee receipt. That building permit fee will now be brought to their office as proof of payment and then the AFT is paid in their office. So, they'll have acknowledgement of that. Um, so that'll take out a leg there. And then the county issues your typical storm water per permit. That won't change and that's just under the state regulation. Um I know there's a lot of verbiage in this ordinance and I couldn't tell you what half of it means. Um it's not my department, but Chris is happy to answer any questions that you have regarding the IRC or the IBC. Um there are two paragraphs highlighted in red in the back. I just need a little bit of guidance. Um, right now the county has a fire marshal that is county oriented. He oversees all the fire inspection and I does he review all the fire plans for the IBC or is that we do we do a plans review for the building mechanical plumbing or he does a fire he gets a plan does his own plans review for fire safety. Okay. So that's Daniel C. So, he does all fire safety for the plans review on the IBC and that's the commercial side. Residential, there's not going to be a review unless it's um a town home style development which falls into that commercial regulation. Um there's a couple options here. You can either work out on contracting something with Captain Ken or seeing having a discussion with him

and having him reviewing the city of Watertowns. you could fall back to just having the state fire marshall review all your commercial plans or if um you're confident and if you have somebody in your volunteer fire department that's certified they can review those plans. So I mean there's three options but the paragraph was left as what we have adopted in the county. I just I'm not sure how you all want to proceed the fire code portion of the IBC. Let me ask Chief Hong, do we have somebody that can fill that role? I would have to get back with you to to give you an honest answer that's accurate. Uh I believe we could uh but I verify a check to see what all would be needed. Well, I kind of put you on the spot uh chief, but uh Christopher and I talked today and I suggested that we talk to you between first reading and second reading, right? So that's consistent with what you just said. Um my thought would be approve this as written and then if it needs to change we can amend it on second reading and that will be the one we we do. So I certainly recommend this to you. This is a major change a very major improvement. There is the very very last paragraph I think it's in here or it's not a paragraph it's a sentence and this is just based off the conversations that we've had through all those emails. It's the very last sentence. It's be it further resolved this resolution. I know you would approve it in your June 17th meeting for second reading if it gets approved there. But it says it's not to be effective till July 1st, 2025 just to come into the new cycle. So if it needs to be pushed out or if you want to make it effective that night, we can. Um but that's just based off the emails that we've had circulating all this. That was the date that we kind of softly agreed on. But there will have to be something put into place on a official date if you don't want that one. Okay. Okay.

Questions of these guys? I I have one for Chris Richardson. I want to make sure I read this correctly that the town home developments because of the section that was dropped and the other section that was added in here would be required to have sprinkler systems. Correct. Uh, so the IRC says yes. The IRC says that the new the 2021 says everybody has test sprinkler sprinklers. That's a big debate. They've got rid of that for single families and the state amended the town homes that you don't have to have them if you have a 2-hour firewall between each unit. So it's either sprinklers or a two-hour firewall between each unit. But that language is there to make sure it supersedes what the original IRC says. Right. And that was the part that was confusing to me when I read it. So it's it's either a 2hour burn wall between units that have not been punctured in any way with air ducts or anything like that. Correct. Or a sprinkler system. Exactly. Okay. Good question. Can can we have it I mean do I guess my question for the council do do we think we need to require sprinkler system cuz we've got a lot of town homes that have been proposed and approved that are haven't come out of the ground yet. I don't know if we want and this may be Chief Han who get his input on this is whether or not we think we would it would be best to require that or can we my understanding is you can as a local municipality you can be more stringent I think you could do that you can be tighter you can't be looser exactly I would give a very high recommendation for adding

When we talked about the big development that we approved out at the off of Grand Avenue back in the back there, there was questions about water pressure and not enough pressure there to sprinkle some of the homes. But there was at that time the developer agreed that he would put in or recommended as I recall, I hope I'm recollecting this correctly, that he would put in some type of booster, a pump or whatever to build it up to a minimum level, but I don't recall us talking about a two-hour firewall. So that's probably still to be discussed. As I recall from the from the planning commission to work on that, the the developer had agreed to put in a inline pump to increase the water pressure in that area, but that water study was done strictly from the perspective of providing water service. Correct. I don't think there was any discussion in that about sprinkler fire sprinkler systems in the development. It was only water service. Okay. To the to the development. And I I think he was going to put a I don't remember exactly where. There's going to be an inline relay pump put somewhere going up New Town Road. Yeah. Push the water on over the hill and increase the pressure to a certain PSI on the back side of there. Did you do that? That wasn't true. Okay. Well, again, then we maybe we adopt this tonight on first reading. So, we can have something in place July 1st and let

that discussion occur between now and the 17th with input from Chief Han on that as well. Uh, yeah. Would it be best to have the sprinklers? It would. I just don't know whether we have the water pressure to support it or not. Yeah. Sometimes uh there's fire flow. It's what they call fire flow. Uh in certain areas the fire chief has the authority to make reductions in rural areas or places where it can't it's not feasible. Um, I also think in our or in our resolution, it also gives our fire chief a little bit of room to to say, "Oh, I'm going to go off the minimum or I can require those fire sprinklers." I think they have some of that wiggle room as well. So, there's a lot of ways you could, you know, write it up. So, well, we need to address that before we do a second reading, obviously. Well, I recommend we take it as is tonight. Okay. It's a motion. It's a motion. Sorry. Sorry. I just I'll second it. Okay. Got a motion and a second. Further discussion, questions of That's a motion. Motion to take it as is as we may make changes to it before the next. We still have the option to amend it at the second reading on these two issues that we discussed. Okay. We've addressed we identified the issues tonight. We can't bring something in totally strange that we haven't talked about, but we can now with this. Okay. Is the way I understand Robert's rules. So, the two issues that we've identified can be amended at the second reading. Yeah. Once we have our information. Okay. Yeah. Further questions, comments, ready to vote? All in favor say I. I. I. Post. All right. That carries on first

reading. It'll be on second reading for the 17th. Would we like to have a public hearing? Oh, yeah. On that as well. Yes. And I've advertised the annexation. Well, it go out tomorrow. The annexation and both of these ordinances or will be in the Wilson post tomorrow. Okay. To meet the 15-day required timeline. Okay. So, we're ready now for the building permit. Um Yes, sir. Ordinance. Mhm. And there was a copy of it. Um, the only correction that I I know that needs to be made on it is in the second paragraph I left the taxpayers of Wilson County, Tennessee in there. That needs to change to the city of Watertown. I fixed it in all the other sentences. I've just missed that one. Um, the fee schedules for commercial and um residential are the second and third phases. Residential is first. And this is an increase fee from your current 30 cents per square foot for a single family home to 70 cents per square foot. This um residential permit fee matches the county's verbatim regarding accessory structures and single family homes. And then um it also covers swimming pools as well. Um the note at the bottom still says Wilson County. That is just an AFT. Um if the AFT language ever changes in Wilson County, I'll update um your all's building permit fee sheet that you can hang down here. or Miss April has. Um, but as of right now, that's a non-negotiable that's required to the county for any residential structure. The third page is your commercial fees. I thought about amending a little bit of this because right now it's the same from the county as a verbatim. I don't know if your city of Watertown needs as many steps as the county has. Ours goes all the way up to um 400,000 square foot buildings. I don't know where that would be feasible in Watertown. Um, and I can take some of those steps out or just

leave them in there as they may never be used, but you'll have them if the request comes. I mean, that's that's up to you all at this point. Um, but as of right now, those commercial fees just mimic what we have in the county. Doesn't really hurt anything to have them in there, does it? No, it's just extra verbiage. Yeah. But no, it's not going to hurt anything. And then it covers you if somebody does come and wants to build an Amazon distribution center down here. We will have to have some water pressure on uh and then I have that the same as the building permit fees. These fees are to take effect um July 1st of 2025. Okay. Questions, comments? I strongly recommend this. It's time that we uh we're beginning to see more activity up here. You know, there was a time 15, 20, 25 years ago, what we saw was one lot where a parent wanted to build a home for a child or something. But we're beginning to see development now with developers coming in from out of county and and uh they pay this in other communities and I think it's time for them to expect to pay it here as well. And then we have folks that'll watch them and make sure they do these things right, which makes me feel a lot better. We we've taken a lot of good steps over the years and this is a major good step in my opinion. So I'll recommend this to you. I make the motion that we accept the bill. I'll second. Got a motion and a second. Discussion. Okay. Hearing none. All in favor say I. I. I.

Opposed. passed it on first reading. And if if you all get to reading it and there's any typos or anything more eyes is better, I just send Mike or myself an email and I'll be happy to fix that to clean it up for your second reading. It'll also have the ordinance number references in your second reading as well. Anything else you guys? I don't have anything else for you, sir. We've taken care of park. All right. Well, we'll move on to other stuff. You're certainly welcome to stay. I don't can't imagine why you want to leave, but thank you all. Don't block the door back there as everybody leaves. All right. Appreciate everybody. Appreciate all of you guys. Yeah, I knew. Yeah. Clear the Here they come. Thank you. See you. All right. Uh let's go back then and pick up on some things. We opened bids on the 20th here of May um for the uh repair and renovation of the water tank here. The uh we had three good bids. And um when I sent you a letter that day, we were under the impression that G and Dale Tank Sand Blasting and Coatings had received the bid. But when um Steve Jones, our engineer, tabulated the bids and went back and added things up, uh Curran's Construction Services is the low bidder at $275,220. The grant we are getting will pay $181,000 of that. We're going to have to pay about $94,000 of that. Let me give

you the background. I'm sure y'all probably remember, but maybe the folks out that may be watching us. This is an $899,000 total project. Not just the water tanks, but some other things we're doing. And we are responsible for 25%. We're paying 34% on this one. So on the uh other two things that will come back to you and be bid after this, our portion will be less than 25%. We're still responsible for a total of 200,000. So Steve has indicated Steve Jones that u um this is a good bid. He's he's satisfied with it. He said they've done good work and my understanding is that once they submit this to the state, they'll go to work and this job has to be completed very quickly because we're going to be draining the tank and there'll be a couple of days there where we all may sleep a little uh nervously. They'll have a temporary tank there, but of course it won't be as big as the water tank we have. will also have access to Wilson County water and they have indicated to Steve that should a fire develop they can provide 220,000 gallons of water. If we don't have a fire and it's needed they can provide 181,000 gallons of water per day. So uh once they start that they they expected to finish it very quickly. So I recommend that to you. We have to accept that bid so that they can go to work. What was the company's name again? I'm sorry. What was the company name again? Company is um Currins, C U R Ns, Construction Services LLC, and they are from Haroldsburg, Kentucky. We had

uh two other bids, one from Shelville and another one from NE. I guess that's Nebraska. You know, this is a specialized work. So, but when we left that day, we thought the Shelville company had gotten a bid, but they have not. They're not low. So, current construction is and they were here that day, by the way. Do you need a motion to approve? I do. I'll make a motion to approve for the bid on the water tank renewal. Yep. Is there a second? Second. I guess we should say uh add in there in the amount of $275,220. Y'all good with that? Yeah. I was going to suggest we put the name in there so we know which one it was. Yeah. It's Currans. Currins Construction. All right. Questions, comments? Okay. If not, all in favor say I. I. I. Opposed? Carries. A lot of major stuff going on here tonight, folks. We knew we'd come, but uh we're getting there. Uh let me just update you update you briefly on our other projects and then we'll move on to a couple other things. Um, Ry Engineering is still doing our work on identifying our water loss in the community and we will have some u a report on that shortly. I forget the date but it's not too long in the future. Um, the sewer construction project we are at I wrote this down somewhere. We have spent [Music] um

$2,787,000 and we have spent 51.1% of the project. So, the project's basically about half done. I know that we and people out in the community are ready for it to get done. Certainly with the street that's closed down there, but u uh it is moving along. The weather has probably held them up a little bit. The work they've got to do in the creek, it's got to be pretty much close to dry when they get in there. So, hadn't been that way for a while, but it'll get that way this summer. We all know that. Uh we talked about the water project. Nothing on street pavement, of course, till we get all this other done. And our turntable. We're back to having our monthly meetings with the federal government. We had one in May and primarily discussed issues that the engineers and architects were having to deal with. And right now we have another meeting on June the 11th to uh carry on proceed on. So, uh that's really all the update I've got on on those things right now. Any questions that I could try to answer for anybody? Okay. I try to keep y'all posted as best I can. I probably hadn't done a very good job last couple of weeks, but I'll do better. [Music] Um, Laura, you mentioned a while ago from Sarah about the fireworks. The fireworks, the Fourth of July fireworks has always been a partnership between the chamber and the city of Watertown 5050. And it went up a little bit this time. What did it go to, April? 5,300 or 5,500? 5,500. Um, with the chamber only paying two, that means it'll take 3500 to have the same show that we've had the last few years. I don't have a problem with us doing that. And subject to the budget

committee and y'all's actions, I'm going to include that in $3500 for next year. I think the people here in this community have gotten to where they expect that. They like it and you can tell we have a lot of people that park up and down this highway and park anywhere they can. They come from a lot of places to see it because they don't want to go to Nashville and get in that rat race. Uh, and we have a pretty good little show. It's not an hour long. It doesn't have music, but if you like big booms and lightening up the sky, we got it. So, if y'all are okay with that, I'll put that in the budget. 3500 and we'll pick up slack on that. um the report on the repairs at the old city hall. Just to let you know that uh you see in there, I think uh in the stuff that April sent out where we paid uh Gerald Lamerson for all the work. And uh so that part is complete. We've got to get in there and clean it out. Steve Casey suggested that the other day and I'm holding back just a little bit, but we got to get that done. It's at least dried in now. They took four um there were four layers of four levels of roofing. Yeah. And tore out a lot of the decking, so it it was rotten. Um okay, what else have I got? Our budget report is uh in front of you there. It's pretty much what we expect. I've got to bring you a budget amendment in June 17th and whenever we have our second reading on the budget to move some money around and also to move some money into it from the ARC money that we didn't include in the budget. So, that will change the numbers significantly. Uh, have we done the development regulations? All right,

we're down to the main events. uh water and sewer rate increase on first reading. Um we uh employed a a gentleman to do a study of our system of our utility rates. Uh he did that. Uh we had a work session on that. Mr. Blankenship, Mr. Adams came from Blankenship CPA Group. He gave us as he called them scenarios. um he recommended um a divided scenario where a portion of the increase would go to water, a larger portion would go to sewer because that's where we are having to pay off the debt. Um he also gave us a combined scenario but he said it would not be a an accurate reflection of how the money is being spent. So for and I know you folks around the table know but for the folks out here I'll go ahead and go over it again. Um, if we did a combined scenario, revenue would have to increase 75%. If we do a uh separate scenario, the water portion of the bill would have to go up 35%. The sewer portion would have to go up 130%. Yeah. So uh it was his recommendation that we do the uh separate separate the water and the sewer. It will uh change the calculations obviously on the water bill and how we do it because right now our sewer bill is just double the water

bill. That will change. Uh but the $5.5 million that we had to spend to repair a lot of things in our system has to be paid for. And we've been talking about that now for about 18 months and knew this day was coming. I said something earlier and I'll share it for what it's worth. I've been dreading this day for a long time. Uh we had to uh raise rates once back in the 80s 45% and we raised some rates in 2021 but not a a large amount. And then uh Randy Gualtne who's kind of our unofficial historian found a letter back in 1981 where uh the um city was increasing water and sewer rates by 30%. So, uh, at anyway, at any event, that's just the history of it. But I'm ready for, uh, whatever action I'll see fit on the, uh, recommendation, but we got to pay our debt, folks. I'd like to make one comment before we show. Um, I took the initiative over the weekend and I pulled the Wilson County water rates and even with this increase, even though it's very significant, as long as you're under the 10,000 10,000 gallon mark every month, our water is still cheap. Our fresh water, this not sewer, but fresh water is still cheaper than what Wilson County is. So yes, it's a significant increase for us because we've been historically low for a long time, but compared to the county, we still come in the first couple thousand gallons is about the same, just a few dollars difference. But as as you get into the higher gallon amounts is actually we're still uh we're still at a

lower rate if if I did my math correctly, which I I could be wrong, but I bet you did. Um what's the timeline like how soon this will go into effect? Well, we would need to approve it second reading next month and then it would go out with what April the bill that goes out June 20th or if you want it to be effective in July. So, the bill would be paid in July and it would be included in next year's budget. We have uh I didn't bring those figures, but we have a total debt service payment next year of $350,000 payable interest in November, principal and interest in May. So, we need to get it going start of the budget year. And that's down like $3,000 from what we paid this last year, but it varies. It It'll always been in the neighborhood of 350 to $355,000. It's level term level finance. So, there'll be a note on the bill saying this is happening. Um, well, there can be. I'm going to put out as much information as I can in advance. I'll probably do my article in the paper entirely on this so that people know. Uh probably we'll put something on Facebook and we can do uh whatever. But there's always already been some calls in and questions asked about it. So it's it's out there. Uh yes ma'am. I have a question that Tim Black. Um, in the case of charging these at two different rates, are you going to meter the input and output at the two different rates?

We don't have that know of current method of metering separately the water and the sewer and assuming that they're the same is incorrect for a lot of how the water is utilized. Say that last part again. I didn't hear everything missed out. the uh your water and sewer is assumed now to my understanding is to be what you take in you put out through the sewer. But you don't if you're watering your grass, if you're watering, you know, filling your fountains or whatever you got, you're you're not putting it in sewer. So why am I paying for sewer amount that I'm not putting in the sewer is going to be the question. What you don't have a way of metering that. What I've seen with other cities that that want to do that, if you have sprinkler systems and things like that, they put in a separate water meter, totally separate water meter, cost effect, right? That's how I've seen other places handle it. If they don't want to pay the sewer on it, they they put in a separate meter, their irrigation, things like that. That's for the homeowner. Mhm. That's who yelling the loudest. What's the sewer rate going to be? I mean, right now it's whatever your water is, it's what your sewer is. So, if you separate them, what is the rate of the sewer going to be? It' be 130% of your water bill. Mhm. Now, the other way we can do it is flat 75% across the board. So whatever your water bill may be 130% above that amount. Is that what I understand? Yes. I don't think it's it wouldn't be a if I understand this right, it wouldn't be above that amount. It would be if you're if you're freshwater portion of

the bill is let me pick a number I can do the math on easy. If the freshwater portion of the bill is $100, your sewer portion of the bill, is it going to be 130 or 230? 230. Going to be 230. So, yeah, it's basically whatever the freshwater meter reads, the sewer charge is going to be that times 130%. The other option, the one I didn't mention or maybe I just did in passing is if we did across the board and not separate them out, it would be an 82.5% increase. They would both be the same, but they'd be 82.5% over what they are currently. Yep. So, if the bill was $100, it would be 18250. So you said this has to go into effect before the next fiscal year. Doesn't have to. It needs to. So we build up the money to pay the debt. Which when is the start of that? July. The bills will go out June 20. And people will be paying those first week of July. The value seems to be the same either way. The end result is the same. It is and it makes it easier on the city on sending deals and everything else that I think that combined together to be the same is a better option for easility. It'll be easier to calculate if we do the the and I don't think it'll be as confusing for other people cuz they're going to look at and be like, why did I get paid so much for sewer than I didn't for water? I even though I know it's used for payment sewer, I think it'll be less confusing and long enough if it's if it's the same for everyone. I think it'd be easier to calculate. I think

it'd be easier to explain and easier to understand. Yeah. Cuz it's the same money no matter if it's 20% gain on water and 160% gain on sewer. It it'll equal the same money in the end. not great numbers, but you know, it will I think it'll be easier on the whole picture if it's increase on both sides. Not the same amount. Let me uh I was looking for something here. Okay, here it is. He did uh projections for us, of course, but he also did historical numbers going back to fiscal year 2020. the uh state requires us and before anybody goes out there and thanks it there are no tax dollars going into this nor will this go into the general fund. The water and sewer fund is an enterprise fund that the bottom line is you got to take in more money than you spend plus depreciation. In 2020 we came up 4% short. 2021 we came up 1% short. 2022 we came up 6% short. 2023 we actually were 1% to the good and then last year we were 6% short. Now this is all before the debts added in. I wish that was all we had to make up for 6%. But this is all before the debt came in. Again the the work we're doing was required by the state by order. So, um, what we've got to do is, y'all heard me talk about being called into the state. Well, that's what it amounts to. When we get a negative number, they call and say, "What are you going to do about it?" And I've been resisting that for some time. But can't resist it any further with all this debt. So, I'm I just said that for historical perspective. It doesn't

change bottom lines options, but I I'm fine with fines, not the right word. I'm acceptable to the 82 and 12% possible if that's the way you want to go. Well, I make a motion. As much as I hate to, it has to be done and I hope the public knows that this is just the way it is and I hate it and I hope the they're not mad at us, but it I mean we have to pay our debt. But I make a motion that we I think it's option one where it is the same. 82 82 and a2%. Yes, sir. Is there a second? I'll second. Thank you. If I could make the motion or second, I would, but I I do make the recommendation. So, you're not out there alone. Discussion, comments, questions? I I do want to make one comment because it hadn't been mentioned u in this study. Um Bob Adams also gave us a projection if if we didn't change anything basically we would be almost $400,000 in the red next year and uh that's ending in 26 27 it would happen again or basically we'd be bankrupt before the end of 28. So, this is not something that, you know, as Laura said, this is something we have to do. And unfortunately, it's it's been a long time since we've spent any major money on the water and sewer. And it the bill's coming due for the past 20 25 years that things have been sort of status quo. But sewer has been in the ground since 1962. The water's been in the ground longer than

that. Yeah. These lines. So, is it possible for us to wave the late fee for that first month? I just think you you have a lot of people in this town that that's going to hurt cuz that's pretty quick. I mean, cuz I mean, you got a $60 bill right now jumps up a 100 bucks almost. Well, we're going to have to do this on two readings, too. That's something I'd certainly consider before the second reading. Um, yeah. You want to go ahead and amend the motion to add that in? That's what everybody else wants to I'm not opposed to it, but I mean, my concern at Okay. if you wave the late fee or or are we going to give it I mean at what point does the late fee kick back in because I mean I'm I'm not I'm just saying look I mean I don't know how many months I mean if it's one month two months we just say that and it's known like when he puts in his letter hey I understand this is paycheck quick you know you know hey I mean single mom I had a I had a $300 bill at one point. Um, if I could do 150 in one paycheck and 150 another paycheck, sure does help a lot more than $300 at once. All right, I'm I'm fine with what Caleb is proposing for for a month. Now, let me tell you all the practicalities of it. About half the property in this city is rental property. Exactly. And we get a call frequently from somebody saying, "I need a few more days on my water bill." And we used to give them a few

more days and we find out they moved out over the weekend and we get hung with it. So I'm okay with waving the late fee because that means they got to pay their bill, but I'm not for setting up installments. And then the the property owner says, "Well, wait a minute. You didn't make your deal with me. You made it with my renter. And we've lost some money over the years. We we've lost 56 $7,000 a year. Enough probably to make up the difference between 1% being good to me. And I want to be good to them. So, but I want them to be good to me, too. I don't want to beat me. Well, you want to wave the late fee for two months now? I'd say one month. I'll tell you better. I just Yeah, one month's fine. I just think you say that it's not in place until Yeah, just the light and we So you don't know. I believe it's just And I can't quote the theory. Y'all probably can. But the more you raise stuff sometimes the less people use. So we may lose some volume there and lose some money that way for at least for a little while. So I don't want to tinker with it too much. Yeah, people will become conscious of their usage when this kicks in. Yeah. And and Caleb, I'm not I'm not opposed to what you were saying, but I'm in agreement with Mike. We got to be careful because something like that will be abused by a certain portion of society out there. Yep. Yeah. I mean, I don't disagree. I'm just saying you're we're not voting it in and then the next month, oh, here it is. And whether you put in the newspaper or not, there's still going to be plenty of people who don't read it, don't see it, and they're going to look at the water bill and

they're going to call them and say, why is my water bill $100 more and it's going to be like, oh, that's what it is now. Like, good luck. you know, so I just think most people it's probably fine, but there are I think a lot of lower income people here that it's going to hurt. So just give them a little bit of a leeway. We'll bring that up on second reading and I'll be willing to entertain that for a month. Uh I probably would disagree with you a little bit, Caleb, on the fact people not going to know about it. Bob Morgan's already telling me they cussing me at the restaurant. So I gota say so I'm just saying I mean maybe I'm the minority. I don't go I don't sit around the old man table and chitchat. You've been a nice guy. So I mean I'm going I guess from my demographic. So yeah, you you've been a very nice guy and representative. All right, back to the original motion. We got a motion on the table to do the combined rate of 82.5% on first reading. You ready to vote? Yep. All right. All in favor say I. I. Opposed. All right. I appreciate that being unanimous. Um, can I ask one question? Mhm. We're talking about the notification and April may know the answer to this. What does it cost us in a month to mail our I guess my question is should we consider sending a letter out to all of our all of our water bill people, everybody that's on the water bill list to give a notification and and have the rate new rate schedule published in there. It would cost us the paper and the postage. Just an explanation of fees changed.

I don't know how much that would cost or if we would I don't know either. I'm not opposed to doing that, but you want to do it after we adopt it on second reading. Well, it's that may be something we need to research between now and then and and see, you know, I think we would send it out with the first water bill and an explanation what's going on. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. You can send at the same time. So maybe the water bill gets put in an envelope with the letter the first time and we only pay in the postage one time. But yeah. Yeah. I I think that's probably the best way to do it. We can we can look into that. We we can do that. I say look I was just thinking about something else. I made a comment a while ago about rental property and I don't mean to maybe that was a bit too forward but I sign checks once a week unless there's some type of emergency and there's rarely a week goes by that I don't that April hadn't gotten notice from somebody that they want their deposit refunded usually three or four a week. So when you'll multiply that, that's anywhere from 15 to 20 a week a month. Uh we've gotten to where we're very stringent about making people pay and that's been uncomfortable sometimes when we've had to had to uh tell somebody we know and we know they're good people, but we can't make exceptions. So, um, it's tough and she gets facial with me. As I told her just before we came in here, we're going to hear about it, but she'll hear about it first cuz they're going to call her and she'll probably listen to some people that maybe she shouldn't have to, but

um, raise the deposits that help raise. Yeah. Yeah. Main thing is we get enough money to pay the debt because and I hadn't mentioned this but I think I'm correct on this. If we were to go into major default like what you were talking about, $350, $400,000, the state would replace the mayor and council. And there may be people out there now jumping up and down their living room and say, "Great." But somebody's got to do the job. And whoever sits in the seat still got to raise the money. So, um, it's got to be done. So, any we voted on that, didn't we? I hope we voted. I voted I Okay. And we all did. All right. We Oh, well, I got one other thing to ask you about that. We uh meet on that one. We meet again June 17th. You want it to come up that night? Just do it. You don't want to have a special meeting before that or anything? Okay. Should we? I don't think so. I think we just have a lot to do that night too with all the annexation and building permits and everything. Okay. Um now let me go through someformational items. I already talked about uh next meeting being June 17th at 6:00. We um we'll have to set another meeting later in the month to do our second reading on the budget. Anticipate having the budget ready to go on the 17th. Get it out to you a few days ahead of time. Uh but we can talk about that meeting on the 17th of when we want to do it. Community league finished up Saturday. Uh I'm told we had a good year it seems to me.

Um, I didn't get over here as much as I like to, but uh, let me say this. I didn't get a single complaint on it. And that's good. A lot better. Yeah. The hunters, the coaches, the parents. Yeah. Last year I posted a few times up here about the behavior over there. It was It was pleasure to watch this year. Well, I think the people doing it had a lot to do with that. police department have a lot to do with just the presence and I think it went well and if it didn't I hadn't heard about it and used to be a director of schools here you remember Dr. Duncan Dr. Dr. Duncan used to tell me, he said, you know, if it don't get to my desk, it ain't a problem. So, uh, we, uh, we have a holiday this month, a relatively new holiday on June 19th, which is Junth. It's on Thursday. So, I just wanted to make you aware of that. City will be closed that day. And um that is really all I have and we'll that's enough. We'll uh we'll go down the table. Oh, I want one other thing. You asked a couple of meetings ago and I want to make sure I tell you this if I can find it. Y'all bear with me just a minute. I had all this set up and then I jumped out of order here. You asked about the sirens. Um, yes. Yeah. And Marty Hickman told me, uh, somebody said, "Well, to put one at, uh, the high school." He came back to me. Apparently, he was watching us that night and said, "You have tornado warning sirens located at Watertown Middle School and Watertown High School at the end of the football field. Both are showing active and working properly

before, during, and after the event. As you probably know, I cannot make them any louder. So, you asked about that and I forgot to tell you that last they did say that once it it goes off from Wilson County into Wilson County, period. Yeah. And those straight line winds, we were not under a warning for certain tornadoes. So, that's why it did not go off at that time, too. That's correct. where we had the most damage. We were just under a wind advisory, not anything that required. Yep. All right. Mel, you got anything? Nothing, sir. Mr. Kale, Mr. K, our when our our water restoration's being done, it's going to be really close to July 4th. What? And our tanks getting refurbished. It's going to be really close to July 4th. Should we make something kind of aware? I don't want to stop anyone from shooting fireworks, but we we will fire be bad. We will and probably in conjunction with the chief blake. Yeah. Um I don't know if we can get any extra water here just then that that period to make just in case just cuz we all me included. I just you know good idea if it's dry it hasn't been lately but if it is dry it's going to be probably will be by then. Yeah. Um, and don't hold me to this, but I think Steve Jones told me that once they start this project, they will complete it by July 31st. All right. So, all right. What else you got, buddy? That's it. Miss Laurel, thanks. All right. Sure. to sign up. The Miss Sarah just texted me and said that the next paper runs June the 4th and that she'll be happy to put it on the front page about the water. Your statement if you want to include that

um give it to her Friday before July June 4th. That is the coming Friday. This Friday. That would be this coming Friday. You'd have to have it to her by this coming Friday. Then she would need it. No, this Friday the 30th, right? But that's the last Friday before June 4th. She likes to have it like a Friday before, but she'll do like two days before. But on, you know, um I'm going. Yes. Um I got a message from someone that just said, let me pull it up because I guess it's Commerce Street shut down. Mhm. And then Monday is fine. She just texts me and said Monday is fine. Monday is fine. Monday's fine. Okay. Well, you put that in your usually tells me 9:00 on such a such a day and I usually get a couple extra hours. Um, so the movie shoot that took place on the square. Commerce is down and then we shut down Am Street. They were asking, "Do we know when the the people are coming to make these film shoots? When the squares be squares going to be closed, can we let the public know or is it just shut down? Yeah, the alley was all shut down. They could The alley was all that shut down behind the hardware. I went to to the businesses and told them it was it was on Sunday where it was and they they didn't shut down the square. Okay. Well, they said it was blocked off. Two police vehicles were blocking off AM at the square. I only had one officer assigned to it and I had maybe an officer during the day that none of the square was supposed to be blocked off at all and you know they paid their money to do it a a wanted to come and ask you but it was before the meeting today. I thought when we had talked before we kind of had

an agreement with this one company. Sometimes it's the singer, whoever wants to just show up and we don't have a 24-hour notice. And we kind of had an agreement of yes, we'll take care of this because they do compensate us. Yes. Correct. Okay. Before I responded back, I wanted to know that. Correct. They pay $500. Yes, sir. And we were actually, you know, it's been probably two years. We're going to discuss that and you know we can at some point about the you know we also make them do additional insurance on the insurance so you know I get all I do it all I'm so that way there's then I send it uh you know again if we say it's a th000 and that's what it is and then that's straight to the city additionally insured. Now, the only reason it happened so quick and it was an alleyway on Sunday. That's the only really the only reason that we weren't able to say, "Hey, we'll wait for this." But it was a shoot from Belmont and I can't really I won't reveal the rest of it, but it's something big is going to happen. You have plenty of this and it's like short film till we get to what they're fixing to do. Okay. the the money that we get from that we put into the park fund. Unless y'all want to do something different, no tax dollars go into our park fund. We run our leaves off user fees and sponsorship fees, but we do have some um expenses here in the park and so we we use that to help offset that. And which reminds me, I should have told you uh Mr. Morgan has hit me a few weeks ago, days ago. He found a deal on a zeroturn mower and we bought it for $5,000 out of the park apartment. So,

but he was tickled to death and Mhm. Good. Yeah. Good. So, now I'm sorry I No, you're fine. So, I'll answer you have to humor me. Sometimes I remember, sometimes I don't. I'll answer him back. I've already done that. And then my last thing is if y'all have not tried new Grandoffs, y'all need to. I've gone twice in the four days it's been open and it is wonderful. So I think I saw the two that cuz we we've been twice since Friday. It's delicious. You don't have all this time to eat. How do you get jobs like that? That's probably why I don't have a man. Well, I wasn't out of town on my weekend watching baseball either. That's true. I got tired of ballpark food. I tell you that. Uh, anything else, Lauren? I I don't have anything other than the fact that we need to reconsider that $500 filming fee in the budget starting next year. Yeah, I think that needs to go up. It does need to go up. They're paying more than that in a lot of places in my opinion. Um, okay. [Music] You ready? I got a motion to adjourn. Second. Let's go home. Thank everybody for coming.