Common Council - Regular Meeting

It's not exactly. I don't think it's a traditional tip, but it's definitely got elements of city support.

I don't know that I was a material there.

I'm not particularly clear on the structure, but I think that's what they can do. The portion that we're dealing with tonight has to do with what's called the general development plan and the precise implementation plan, which is more like a land use review than a financial review. And I think that's why it's minimal in terms of talking about how it's going to proceed. But that's their plan for development is what they're doing tonight. That's what I thought.

See, I gave you that comment on your first picture being a little bit more of a mugshot.

Second one was good.

Excuse me. Committee, the whole meeting in order. It is 6.37 p.m. May I take a roll, please?

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Here. Here.

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I did not hear my name called. Yeah. I am here.

She's got you, Mr. Arnett.

Thank you.

Yep. Okay. Our only business tonight, presentation from Accurate Assessor on 2027 revaluation. Laurie, go ahead, please.

All right. Well, thanks for having me tonight. Again, I'm Lori. I'm with the statutory assessor at Accurate Appraisal. I am your specific statutory assessor. So I've done the board here since I want to say 2021. So I wanted to come and speak tonight because we are going into another re-evaluation year. This will be our third that we've had with the City of Watertown. Generally, when we're doing a market update in that year, you tend to hear from a lot of So talking with administration, we thought it'd be a good idea to come and just proactively talk about what's coming up. So, um, I wanted to give again, a little bit of a background accurate has been Watertown's appraisal since 2021. We took over the record. Um, we had a maintenance year in 2021, which means we maintain the last level of assessment that you had prior to that. In 2022, we did a market update again, as a reminder, the state of Wisconsin is what regulates the assessments, uh, with assessors. They do prefer for the state of Wisconsin to be at market value. There are thresholds that each municipality needs to meet. They want you to stay within about 10% of market value. Once you fall above or below that 10% threshold, they generally will send you a letter saying, hey, you have a certain amount of time to get back into compliance. At that time in 2021, I believe the city of Watertown had received that letter, so that clock was ticking, and we had brought the city up to 100% of market value in 2022. The average increase at that time, taking a look back, for residential properties was about 47%. In 2023, we've done another maintenance year after that. Again, just maintaining that level of assessment. 2024, we did another market update. So about every other year there, that average increase for the community was about 20%. Again, much lighter. It was a much shorter timeframe between 2021, 2022, excuse me, and 2024. In 2025 and in 2026, we've been in a maintenance year again, again, maintaining that last level of assessment since 2024. Last year, that assessment ratio that I talked about, just as far as that level of assessment since that 2024 market update was a level of about 91%. So you're getting to that kind of 10% threshold. So again, next year we'll do a market update again. So we would expect again, values to change to where the market has gone. Given the level of assessment for the year prior was at 91%, the theme would be that we would anticipate those market values to continue to rise. I'm not here to talk about theoretically what they will go to. That's not what today's meeting is about. But again, just to let you know what Accurate is going to be doing to prepare for that market update and a couple other things that we do have in place. So the big one and the big reason why we wanted to talk today is part of our contract is to do exterior inspections. We had done exterior inspections in 2021 to prepare for 2022. So people in the community may have experienced those if they were home or received those letters or kind of had been part of the community. But again, enough time has passed where it's a good idea to have a refresher there. So again, the goal is to update the property record cards. What I mean by that is every parcel within each community in the state has kind of a record what's on the land. What kind of land is it? and then anything built upon the land. So our goal during that exterior inspection is just to make sure what is on each parcel is true and accurately reflected. So when we do our market update, it's going to be properties adjusting to their fair market value comparative to sales that have happened in the community over the last couple of years. So again, it really helps to make sure that everyone is fair and accurate within the valuations. I'll talk a little bit more about that, but the walks should begin in about a week. We have sent postcards today to residents. It will be, and I have copies, I believe everyone has received some of the frequently asked questions, but I also do, and I can pass these out, have a copy of the postcards so that everyone can kind of see what residents will be receiving. It is almost the same template, if you want to pass it on. Same template of what we sent out in 2022. We are breaking out the community in two different sections that will begin at two different timeframes just because we want, once we start a section, we want to kind of continue on in a pretty fluid motion. What your residents can expect is that an assessor would come to their home, knock on the door before doing anything else to let the property owner know that we're there. If somebody is there, we do, in all fairness, try to also ask some interior questions. We're not there to walk inside the property or go inside, but we are if we can quickly confirm some of the interior as far as like bedroom count, bathroom count, general condition of the property. And then let them know what they plan to do on the outside was to just do a quick walk around the property to confirm the exterior details. Again, what we're looking for is that, for example, that the style of the home on the property record card is correct. From an outside perspective, how's the condition? Confirming other attachments, which might be porches, decks, patios, things of that nature. detached garage, attached garage, pools, sheds. Again, just making sure that essentially the property record card and all full detail is correct. And I'll step back. The other thing too for the inside is any finished interior, basement, and other spaces too. So again, if we're able to talk to them to confirm the inside, great, but the main objective is the outside. If no one is home, we do have sticky notes that we always put on somebody's door to let them know that we have been there. It has a QR code where they can visit our website. has an email, it has our website, and it has our customer service phone number. So if anyone's curious about why we were there, if they missed it and can't relate it to the postcard, a lot of different resources to connect to our company. What else with that?

And you just referenced that it's going to be an exterior type of, so if they are not there and they read your note, it'll just tell them that the intent is exterior.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Again, if we, if we're there to let them know, cause we, we, anytime we go onto somebody's property, we want to let them know we're there. So if somebody answers, we do kind of quickly ask about their interior, but the main goal is that exterior. We also do want to update the photo. So again, normally it's from the sidewalk, kind of corners, the typical angle. I think that's another point where people always are curious, hey, why is somebody taking a photo of my property? If we're there, we try to update the photo. It should be current and truly reflective of the property. So sometimes somebody may not answer, but a neighbor may see us taking a photo or being on somebody's lot. Again, that would be very typical. And At times, somebody might just go block one end to one end, take photos, and then go door to door. So it's not always door, photo, door, photo, but again, not to get in the weeds. But again, and we want to make sure also that there's also a sketch on each property, that the sketch looks accurate to the property record card. All right. So that will be happening again, starting in about a week. It is anticipated to last about 12 weeks. So a pretty sizable amount of time. We are going to even go to vacant properties, make sure that they are currently vacant, um, exempt properties, truly every single parcel would be, it will be, um, visiting as well as commercial properties as well. I'm sure most people though that you might run into in the community will probably be residential property owners, but again, all parcels are, uh, will be visited. Um, And I can pause if anyone has questions on the walks, but I do kind of want to give a full calendar of expectation. All right. Something that we do check on every year, again, compliance with the state is agriculture. So anyone that might have any farmland or anything deemed tillable agricultural land, Those are currently being done as well. We'll be tying them in where they're supposed to be going when they're still generally crop growing. So you may also see accurate cars around anywhere through December watching for those as well. New construction checks. We have to, for any current work in progress for new construction, check on where our property is at by the first of the year. So typically you'll see accurate cars back between mid-December through probably mid-January, tends to be that time kind of as close to the first year as possible. Again, back in spring, we will be back to check on any permitted work and any sales that would have occurred for the prior year. We do check on those annually. That has nothing to do specific to the market update. We do check on any previously taken out permits that haven't been closed out or any recent in the last year, which would be 2026 permits, and that we're checking on those and the status of those for 2020-2026. We anticipate that next year's Board of Review would be September 30th, again of 2027. So open book, that time period of where property owners have received next year's market value notices would start around August 25th and 26th is when we'll have in Municipal Hall open book meetings Open book generally, and we'll send out a lot of communication over this time. There will be an open book email, phone calls, and then of course in person as well. So many different modes and ways to communicate with the assessor or assessing teams. Again, those are subject to change, but that's the planned meetings for now. So again, I really wanted to make sure to come and talk anytime we're doing something, we're on somebody's property, kind of especially in mass where we're going to every property. We want to make sure there's a lot of communication around that. I know in the past we've done Facebook posts and other things. But it starts with those postcards, so your community will start receiving those this week. And then you'll be expected to see us for about three months. Any questions for me?

So in the frequently asked questions, one of the items that was sent out in our packet was, does the city get more tax revenue from an exterior re-evaluation? And I know this has happened in the past, and I think we've either done a poor job or people just don't listen that, no, we don't get more tax revenue. Some property values go up, some property values go down, and thus it stays the same. However, my question is, what if, in aggregate, more properties go up than go down, is the mill rate then adjusted accordingly to maintain the same level of taxation for the community as a whole?

Given the assessor does not do the taxes, I can't confirm you know what the mill rate would do the standard communication from the department of revenue and they do state something alluding to this in the guide for property owners and that is a recommended document that is put within the standard notice from the department of revenue and that will be on our notices to your residents as well is referring to the average the community average of change tends to be the metric that that mill rate would adjust around if the only thing occurring was the market reevaluation. Again, the assessor cannot control budgets and anything going on with the counties. I know you guys cross over too, but generally the rule of thumb that we'll refer to is what is the community average change? And if your property changed around that community average and nothing else were to have changed budgetarily, then you wouldn't expect a taxation change due to the reevaluations. And we do put those types of information out there as well if people want to look at it.

And just from the perspective of the city, I think we need to do a better job of communicating. And I understand that a lot of the noise comes from the social media keyboard warriors who just, no matter what the city does, they complain that we don't fix the streets and then we only fix the streets. They complain that we're fixing that street. Rick Schultz told me about the 2% rule 20 years ago. that. You're never going to please them. But at the same time, I think a lot of people don't understand that this is not something the city is choosing to do. We're required to do this by state statute. I think a lot of people don't understand that the city just doesn't throw a dart at a board and decide, oh, this year we're going to do a reevaluation. So I think that that's important information to get out to the community and get ahead of it because, and again, A lot of it's going to be the same people complaining about it that don't understand the process, but at the same time, it's good to get that information out there to the other people who actually will read that and understand it.

Mr. Wiepe, go ahead.

So an instance of what you just described I can think of in the history that I've been on the council was we had an evaluation that essentially looked at all properties and substantially increased the burden on residential properties and reduced the burden on commercial properties, which more or less had the effect of essentially raising residential property rates consistently throughout the city. I mean, I think it would be helpful to know if we were in a situation where that's one of the things, and I don't recall exactly if that was that was known going into the evaluation or if that's just one of the effects that happened as we got further along and knowing that there had not been a significant reevaluation of our commercial properties in a while. So, can you speak to a little bit about some of those effects in terms of some of the shift residential, commercial, industrial, and some of those other types that we may see as a result of an assessment?

Yeah, absolutely. So, when, again, To your point, it is a state regulated change that we need to stay up on. The two major classes for the city of Watertown is residential and commercial. So those are two of the categories that essentially need to be in compliance in order to meet state requirements. Looking even at the major class comparison for last year, the residential was 92%, almost about 93%. And commercial was at about 97%. So even looking at those numbers, it would appear that residential properties have fallen further out of compliance than commercial. That wouldn't be a reflection of the last assessment, but more a change because both were at 2024's numbers. Commercial was technically logged as 101%. And residential right at 100%. So in that year, just commercial by these numbers hasn't changed as strongly as your residential properties. And that's just a reflection of growth and where it's being put within the city of Watertown. So again, by that estimate, I would expect that that same burden potentially would be put back on or would be more effective of residential property owners. Again, in that would just be a reflection of growth in the community or maybe not as much growth within commercial.

Just to point out though too, I'm in commercial real estate and that market is a lot more stagnant and a lot more struggling in comparison to residential and the ability to get large increases in value in commercial is not easy and it's the exception, not the rule. I have listings that can take up to a year to find a tenant that qualifies for what they need in order to be a good tenant in the eyes of the landlord. So it is a more struggling part of the market.

Yeah, and it looks like these numbers are pretty reflective of a little bit more stagnation in commercial. Any other questions? All right. If there are questions, Megan and Mark both have our contact information. If there's any additional or specific education that you feel residents would relate to or you're starting to hear certain themes of questions, we may already have a kind of pre-programmed, ready-to-go communication that we can send, whether it's online or hard copy. We're open to different inserts. I know we've sent in with utility bills and other things like that in the past. So anything we can do to help people kind of know and be prepared or empowered so they can ask additional questions, that is all something that we want to work with you guys on. So please do let us know how we can be of better help. Thank you.

Thank you, Lori. Okay, if there's nothing else, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn.

I move to adjourn.

Motion by Lampe.

I'll second.

Second by Davis. Okay. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. We're adjourned at 6.56. Why don't we just take a five-minute break. We'll start at 7.01, 7.02. Councilman, okay.

Thank you, Lori.

Okay, I'd like to call Mr. Seth Heppner from Faith Lutheran for invocation.

Lord God, ruler of all, we commend our city and its leaders to your care. Lord, bless our mayor and all those who represent the people of Watertown. Impress on all who are in authority the sacredness of the responsibility you have placed upon them. Give them the gifts required for leadership, wisdom, and compassion. Lord, just bless this meeting tonight and any discussions that will take place. I also pray for all the teachers and students of this city. The schools have started or are about to begin. I thank you just for the gift of learning. Give every teacher just that desire to treat every child as the gifts they are from you. In Jesus' name I pray.

Amen.

Amen. Thank you, Mr. Ratner. Okay, I'd like to call tonight's Common Council meeting to order. It's 7.04 p.m. here on September 1st. Megan, please take the roll call.

Davis? Here. Lampe? Here. Berg? Here. Natecky? Here. Lanky? Here. Smith?

Here.

Arnett?

Here.

Haas? Here. Moldenhauer? Here.

Okay, could you please stand for Pledge of Allegiance?

Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Okay, next on your agenda we have the Minutes from August 18th. Councilman, minutes from August 18th.

I'll move for adoption of those minutes, Mr. Mayor.

Okay, motion by Berg.

Second by Molnar. Mr. Berg, go ahead. Just a comment that I notice periodically, but occasionally, sometimes we have a divided vote. And when we do, I think it's beneficial for transparency, full awareness of people as far as looking at the issue, if they can find out who maybe is part of that split. So I think in the past it's been done but not consistently to show on a divided vote those that are in opposition as part of the breakdown of that vote. If we could do that, I think it would be beneficial to the public.

Okay, so thank you, Mr. Berg. Anything else on there? Okay, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, next we have comments and suggestions from citizens present. Members of the public who wish to address the council should register their request in writing with the city clerk prior to speaking. Speakers shall be permitted up to three minutes for their comments.

Dr. Bob Rubnow.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, council, mayor. You probably know me. I've been involved with vocational, technical education and engineering for many, many years. Back in the 70s, I fought with the city council to do the right thing and make a strip mall out here. They did the right thing, and I'm going to do the right thing tonight. Also in the 70s, we fought to keep the Watertown Airport. They wanted to move it, thanks to all the realtors in town. Guess what? We still have a Watertown Airport, and I'm proud of that. And why I'm here to address you tonight is this. 9th Street is a racetrack. I don't know why, but from 6 o'clock to 8 o'clock in the morning, From 3 o'clock to 7 o'clock at night, there are cars going down that street 40, 50 miles an hour. We have a lot of children living on that street. And I assure you, if you don't change this or put speed bumps in or some way control the speed of that traffic, we're going to have children killed. I can assure you of that. Now, what you've done is you went from one way, and this study was done back, I believe, in the late 70s, early 80s, as a flow diagram and flow, city flow for traffic in Watertown. It was very costly, and some of the findings I disagree with. They thought by the year of 2000 that we'd be 50,000 strong. Well, we're not. But we only had to deal with One-way traffic, and now you change it. Now we've got to deal with two-way traffic. And it's awful. It really is. I hope you come up with something, like speed bumps, radar, whatever it takes, to change the speed of that traffic. Because it's very dangerous. Very. Any questions? Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Rupnow. That's the last one. Okay. There's another opportunity on the meeting. Mr. Blanke later? Do it later. Okay. All right. Next reports. We have the plan commission minutes from August 10th. Site plan minutes from August 10th. Finance committee minutes from August 10th. Police and fire commission minutes from August 10th. Public Works Commission minutes from August 11th, Parks Recreation and Forestry minutes from August 17th, Senior Center Advisory Board minutes from August 18th, Watertown Main Street Program minutes from August 18th, RDA Board minutes from August 19th, and Public Safety and Welfare minutes from August 26th. Mr. Berg, go ahead.

Just a comment on the Watertown Main Street Program minutes from August 18th. They're There was a mention of a David Pappy who made a motion to initiate and start a 2028 reconstruction relief fund, seeding it with $1,000. And the impression I'm getting is that he gave that initial amount of money to get it started. And if so, that's incredibly commendable. And it is the type of thing we probably need on the part of other people, including our city, or in some way we need to add money to that account. And it's nice to see an individual business owner downtown initiating that to get it started. So nice job.

Okay. Anything else on reports? All right, next on our communication recommendations, we have Watertown Fire Department presentation. I guess I'll allow time here.

What?

I'll allow.

Oh, thank you.

All right.

The other side's working. This one's not. I'm going to go...

It's not in slideshow view either.

Well...

Okay, now it's working. All right. Thank you all for allowing me a few minutes of your time this evening to talk about the fire department and some of the things going on with our staffing levels. The fire department covers 145 square miles over nine different response zones. And this is one of the largest departments service areas in both Dodge and Jefferson counties. Our largest comparison or our closest sibling to this is Beaver Dam Fire Department in Fort Atkinson. Both of those departments are combination departments and cover about 100 square miles each. So we're relatively one of the largest ones obviously in the area. In order to support the 145 square miles and 3,000 call volume that we have, we do have administrative support. We have Don Deschanaux, who was recently added. Thank you all for the support on that one. He's our fire marshal, and he is recently approved to do in-house fire protection plan review. And... fire alarm plan reviews. So we're working on bringing that to fruition with the city to help with the contractors building in the city. He also does our fire investigations, re-inspections, fire inspections, site plan reviews, and fire alarm follow-up. And he has been helping the operational staff with a lot of other things such as access issues and that type of thing. Deputy Chief Alyssa Cahoon is our newest deputy chief. She has taken over the responsibility of EMS oversight and training, and she is also our service director. These are positions and work things that I was carrying in the prior two years that I was here. EMS is 70% of our call volume and it is the majority of what we do. While we call ourselves a fire department, we really are an EMS department that does fire. She is our main liaison with the hospital and our medical director. She's overseeing all of our certification and quality assurance programs and really giving it the revamp that it's needed over the last decade. As far as the operations support that we have, it is a shared role between myself, the battalion chiefs, the lieutenants, and the line staff. Things that they're responsible for with myself is the apparatus maintenance, apparatus purchasing, just response plans, MABIS stuff, and consistency with all of the things that we do on a day-to-day basis. We all share the load and are doing our best to... keep it going. However, a lot of things get lost in the shuffle of sharing it between multiple people. Not only is the City of Watertown Fire Department covering the City of Watertown, which is 13 square miles, we contract for 132 square miles. This is across Dodge and Jefferson County. On here, you can see that we do fire and EMS for the rural fire district, which is Emmett, Shields, Milford, and Town of Watertown. And then we do EMS only for Lebanon. This brings us a revenue of $521,000 annually as of our last contract that we've renewed. I will say that I did adjust the slide order a little bit from what I uploaded in the packet. I'm sorry about that. Not only do we bring in revenue from our township contracts, we also bring in about a million dollars in revenue from EMS billing. So of the 3,000 calls we go on a year, about 1,800 to 2,000 calls are for EMS calls. And with that, we can bring in revenue. As you can see, last year we brought in just $1.1 million. And then in the last two years, we've had the GEMT funding, which is federal support for the Medicaid, Medicare patients. And that's supplemental funding that goes into the fund one balance. About 90% of our calls are for within the city. So those 13 square miles is covering 90% of our need. Of the 3,000 calls we went on last year, 6% of them was into our townships and 4% was for mutual aid. So nine out of every 10 calls are for our own people. And the partners are paying about 10 to 13% of the budget depending on how you look at it. And it's only taking about 5 to 8% of our calls. So they're paying nearly double their usage. Part of that is because it helps to support the capital expense. Not only do we cover the 145 square miles, we also are responding outside of that area. This is called mutual allayed, and this is when areas like Hustisford or Johnson Creek or Fort Atkinson or Beaver Dam have a major incident and they need additional support to go to their scene, such as a structure fire. We will send apparatus to it based on what's called for. This means that we're committing elsewhere, obviously. However, we've done that 112 times last year, and about 75% is mutual aid given because there's more people and more neighbors calling than what we would need to call in. When we have crews committed elsewhere, if we needed to call in mutual aid to help us here, there's a 15-minute delay because our neighbors are about that far away. Just asking for Exonia or Johnson Creek to come in, there's going to be 15 minutes before they arrive. What's interesting about the mutual aid that we provide is over 50% of the mutual aid that we receive is for an EMS incident, while the mutual aid that we're giving out is over 65% is for fire. So when we're called to our neighbors, it's mostly for a fire incident, but when we need the support the most, it's mostly for an EMS incident, which is an interesting dynamic as we look at the rest of our EMS requests. Mutual aid is really important because we are providing for our neighbors while they also provide for us. If we stop responding to mutual aid calls, then they won't want to come to us and it'll break our Mavis agreements. So think about if your house was on fire, you want to make sure that everybody's coming to help us, just like we want to make sure that we're helping our neighbors if they're having a bad day. There's Mavis rules in place. That's Mutual Aid Box Alarm System, and it's a regional system that's set up. We're Division 129 in Dodge County and 118 in Jefferson County, so we're part of two Mavis divisions. Mavis sets up protections and rules that establishes the staffing and the expectation that we will respond. We can't just say no because we don't want to. We can only take a pass if we literally don't have the staffing in the station to be able to go on it. As you know, we currently staff one engine, one ambulance, and the command car as our minimum staffing each day. Some calls need all of them to respond at once, and some of them need even more than that. Obviously, for a structure fire, we would need support from our neighbors. Critical EMS incidents such as mass casualties or major car accidents or water rescues or ice rescues, those types of things, we need a lot of hands on deck to be able to take care of the situation. For example, think about a car accident that's on Highway 26. There's a lot of assignments that need to be taken care of very quickly. Our engine is going to be blocking the scene from oncoming traffic and protecting the firefighters and the victims up ahead. And they're going to provide fire protection if there's a fuel spill or an actual fire going on in the vehicle. And they also may need to do extrication of cutting the person out of the vehicle themselves and stabilizing the vehicle so we can get in safely. So those four people are very busy doing three different roles, if not more. Our ambulance is going to be doing patient care. And if there's multiple patients, they're going to be making contact with every single patient and triaging them, deciding who's most serious and who needs transport first, and providing care until additional support can come for ambulances. Our 4110 car, which is critical to scene safety, they're going to take command, make sure that everything's being done safely. They're going to be the ones calling for additional ambulances. if we need a helicopter, directing the scene of where we're going to set up a landing zone if we do need to land a helicopter and that type of thing. So all of our seven people are working very hard just for a car accident on Highway 26 as an example. We are doing the job. We're getting it done. Last year, we were happy to say that we had $26.6 million worth of property protected that had something happen to them, and 86% of the property was saved. We transported 1,823 patients, and we had a first-out turnout time of our ambulance at two minutes. So we're getting the job done with our first-out calls for sure. However, we're being stretched thin. For our EMS call volume and concurrent call volume rates, we're at the tipping point for national and regional standards and trends to have a second ambulance staffed based on our call volume for EMS calls and the fact that we use our ambulance for fire response. If there's a structure fire or ambulance response, not only are they supposed to be providing the EMS ambulance on scene for the first 20 minutes until mutual aid gets there, but they're also going and doing the search and rescue. So they're doing two roles at once when it really should just be an assigned ambulance. In our monthly report, I've been sharing the percentages of how often we have simultaneous calls, and there's another graphic that we have in our software that I wanted to share with you guys. Last year, you can see on the bar graph that we had 2,200 calls. Last year, there was no other call happening, and that was fantastic. We had first out, no problem. We took care of the situation and came back. But there was 758 times last year, twice a day on average, where there was already a call happening. We had to take people from the engine or have some kind of them come back or do something else, and it's called a double run. And then you can see that it was 147 times for where there was two calls going on at the same time. This year, thankfully, we do have a slight decline so far this year on our simultaneous runs. Well, last year it was about 28%. This year I'm seeing about 24%, 26%. But it still happened 419 times through August 27th. for our simultaneous runs. The second call, when there's a simultaneous run, what that means, if we're at seven or eight people on duty, which is our typical staffing, the second ambulance is getting pulled from the engine, okay? So the two firefighters that are in the back of the engine that are the ones that are fighting the fire, doing the extrication and doing the actual work, if there was a significant event for a fire or car accident, they're now assigned to an ambulance call and not available. That leaves only the driver and the officer available. So they can hook up to the fire hydrant and get water, and then there's one person standing outside able to go and do it. So having a two-person engine crew responding to a fire is a very large concern for me. If we have nine on duty, we do have that swing crew, those two people that are not assigned to the engine, they're able to go and pull that ambulance or the other thing. You'll see down in red, I have 7.9 as our average staffing in 2026. That's also including January and February when nobody's on vacation. We've been in July's monthly report, which you'll see soon coming out, we've been able to break down the average daily staffing by month. And in June, we were at 7.5 people per day. July was 7.4, and I just ran the August numbers before I came in, and it was 7.3. So you can see we're getting into peak season with vacations, hunting season, and our FMLA kicking in with some new members joining us. Even if we're staffed at eight, it pulls from the engine as well. I thought this was a really important slide to share with everyone about what happens with our turnout time. So on this slide, you'll see that there's three green bars. 4110 is our command vehicle. That's the top one. The second green bar is our engine. And the third green bar is our ambulance. Those are the ones that are staffed at a minimum. You can see that our turnout times are right around the 2 minute mark, which is pretty darn good for the size station we have and what we've got going on. And that's a 90th percentile. That means that the chances that you'll get someone out the door in 2 minutes and 13 seconds or less is really good. When you do the average, it's closer to the 90 second mark. However, you'll see when you look at our unstaffed apparatus or our second out vehicles, 4152 is our second out ambulance. That turnout time is up a minute and 21 seconds from the first out, or a minute and 22 seconds up from the first out, and it gets worse as you go down the line. 4153 is our throw-out ambulance. And then 4171 is our ladder truck, eight minutes. That's most likely because they're coming from home. So they are responding from home. getting in it and then going on the call. And so that's a concern because it takes away, that's what's extending the total turnout time, their total response time. And this is an area where I see that we could make some impact by staffing additional personnel per day. What I mean by that is if we add two additional people per shift, So if we go from staffing at nine paid per shift to 11 and taking our minimum of seven and staffing more regularly at nine, not only will we staff a second ambulance that will be able to go without taking the people off of the fire engine, it's also more dynamic and able to pull the water truck for rural fires or fires on the northern part of our city. It can pull the ladder truck or the brush truck because it's not already committed to another scene or something as the ambulance crew. And we don't need to pull people off of the engine to go and pull the ladder truck with just one person. We can at least get two people on that ladder truck. By adding the staffing in at the station that we currently have, it gives us the flexibility to be dynamic in our response to make sure that we're able to pull any of these options rather than just the second ambulance. I appreciate the comments from Alderberg at the Finance Committee about staffing the satellite station at, or staffing an ambulance at 106 Jones. What you would lose is the ability to pull the tender, the ladder, the brush truck, and those alternate apparatus if we have them at a satellite site. Staffing at a satellite site can be a whole other discussion on another day. I'd like to see if we can staff the second ambulance and if that will, I expect that it'll help with our turnout time and our response time as well by adding capacity of our actual staff. I've been very busy with Jefferson County and the EMS workgroup that they've had for the last 14 to 16 months. Things are looking very positive. I'll be presenting next week to the Jefferson County Board on what that money, if we do get it, would do as a benefit to the City of Watertown and Jefferson County as it relates to Watertown Fire Department. Right now, the potential is of our own $500,000. Now, obviously, that's not enough to get us to the six full timers that would be required to staff a second ambulance and the other apparatus regularly. But it's a good move to supplement and support our operations. We do have an informational meeting on September 17th and 24th. We're hosting on the 24th, and I just want to encourage everyone to come and participate in those and hear about what's happening with that to help support the staffing needs in the City of Watertown, but know that it's not going to completely cover the needs of our ask for going into next year. The best part about this is that they're going to keep the same floor of setting them to seven. So I'm not going to raise the minimum staffing to nine with this move next. So like it would just support our ability to staff the ambulance more often. So if somebody calls in, if we're staffed at 11 and two people are on vacation and somebody calls in sick, then yes, we would be down to eight for the day, but it would happen, that would be a rare occurrence for us to be down at eight rather than making eight being an exciting day for us. And so it would support our hiring back requirements. Um, I guess I just wanted to give you an opportunity to ask any questions about Jefferson County EMS before the meeting next month or later on this month. And then, uh, to see if you had any questions about our staffing requests for 2027. Go ahead, Mr. Lampe.

Thank you, Mayor. Chief, as you know, I'm, I'm supportive of, of, uh, this proposal. Um, one of the reasons why we built the fire station the way that we did was that we fully anticipated not only the continued growth of Watertown, but also essentially the consolidation of regional services like fire and EMS into facilities like the fire station where you have skilled training opportunities and all the other pieces in order to do, like you mentioned, have the flexibility of the staff be able to change out pieces of equipment and personnel in a facility that also allows for rapid turnout because of the way that it was designed hand-in-hand with the firefighters. I also appreciate how this proposal is linked to one of those regional consolidations potentially. A lot of the other services in Jefferson having a more formal arrangement in terms of being supported by centralized services from Watertown, I'd like to see that happen. Obviously that's one of the things that state leadership has been encouraging from every level throughout the state as, you know, volunteer crews have become thing of the past and that we are relying much more in terms of professionally trained firefighters. And as again the report notes, most of the calls actually are EMS. So I really appreciate the foresight, the interlocking of the planning here, and the ability to leverage, as you mentioned, the capital investment that the city made in its citizens and all the surrounding communities.

Thank you. I will also say that we have very strong partnerships with our townships and both county elected officials. There are conversations obviously starting in Dodge County about EMS support as well. And then conversations are happening amongst neighbors on not only EMS services and fire services, but also radio communications and all the other opportunities that we can come together.

Mr. Burr, go ahead. Yeah. Chief, the initiative by the counties, is that meant to be a short-term or temporary type of funding mechanism, or is it going to be a recurring, continuing type of benefit that we can rely on or not?

It's intended to be a permanent and continuing benefit. They have the ability to increase the levy to support EMS specifically, and by the nature of increasing the support and funding towards EMS with our reporting of maintenance of efforts. If that goes down, then the maintenance of effort funding goes away too. So it's kind of a, once you do it, you're committing to doing it for the future.

And then on the mutual aid, I know when we were having discussion earlier in the year on that topic in relation to the overtime topic, you, I thought, indicated that the the impact of mutual aid was not a significant factor in the overtime that we were looking at at the time. Is that the case?

Yeah, that's still true. On average, when we do a mutual aid call, it's just a couple hours worth of overtime that we end up paying out. Oftentimes, when we go on a mutual aid call, we do an all-call page asking for off-duty personnel to respond to the station. Many times, nobody comes in or only one or two staff come in. And it's at a two-hour minimum, and rarely is it more than two hours. So unless it's a major event and there's a storm and people know that we have to come and truly pile in, then they will come in. But it's a minimal cost impact to do mutual aid. Okay.

Any other questions?

Okay. Thank you, Chief. Thank you so much.

Okay. We'll move on to the next item. We have Main Street Program Quarterly Report by Stephanie Brewer.

Well, good evening, Mayor and Council. Thank you so much for the opportunity to share with you what's been going on with the Watertown Main Street Program the last several months. As you know, all of our work is centered on four pillars. And every time I come, I go through the four pillars with you. So I'll do that again tonight. But those are historical preservation, community engagement, economic vitality, and promotion. So I'm going to give you just quick highlights from each of those four areas to let you know what we've been working on. First is historic preservation. One of the most tangible ways we support historic preservation is through our facade and sign grants. And since January, with the help of the city's $5,000 contribution to our grant funds, we have awarded $26,150 in grant funding. We have not paid that out yet. We have dispersed $7,775. That's because the projects have been completed. The business owners turn in their paid invoice to me and then we pay out the money that we have awarded them for the grant. We have several additional projects obviously still underway and the remaining funds will be dispersed as those projects are completed. I would tell you that the most important thing about this program is that it helps property owners make improvements to their buildings while also helping preserve the historic character and the appearance of our downtown. The second pillar that we follow is community engagement as part of my focus. a big part of my focus, I'm sorry, has been building partnerships and getting more people involved in the downtown and trying different things to do so. And one of my, and I forgot to bring it up here, but one of my most favorite things that we did was we partnered with the REACH program at Watertown High School. This is a beyond 18 to 21 transition program where students are getting just a little extra help to get them ready for to go out into the world, but they have this really neat program where they design buttons and make them. And so I approached Nadine, their teacher, and asked if they would design buttons for our volunteers. And so we have a lanyard that each of our volunteers get, and then there is a button for each event that we host and facilitate. And on a personal note, I had the opportunity to go and visit these students, spend some time with them in their classroom. They call it their apartment. where they told me how they did the research on the different events to try and come up with unique designs and then make those buttons. So it's been a really fun way of incorporating this group into our program. I've had several students attend the events and they come and find me and want to see that I'm wearing the button that they designed and so that's also been just a special treat. We've also had some great community volunteerism in the last couple of months. So before the big pop-up I really wanted downtown to shine and so I approached a couple of groups. I actually put it on social media as well inviting people to to do pocket projects. You have 30 minutes here, come and weed in front of a downtown business. You have two hours to give me, then I have a bigger project for you to do. And I had several community groups that came and volunteered. I also had a couple of families that gave up their time and did it together and that was fun to see them do that and it was just it was super encouraging and for me what it said is that community engagement should look like it's not just attending an event but actually becoming part of the work to make our downtown successful and I will say that I'm going to talk about the big pop-up here next but it did shine our downtown did shine that day and it was exciting to see all the people there. The third pillar is economic vitality and And this is really at the center of what we do. And one of the biggest examples, obviously, this quarter was the big pop-up. The event was a tremendous collaborative effort, not only amongst 519, the Chamber, Tourism, and Main Street program put this event on. But I would also take a moment to specifically recognize the city departments and individuals that helped with this project. The streets department, I know Stacy's in here, the communication with her and her guys delivering the things that we needed, talking with us through like where no parking signs can go and when they needed to go up was just amazing. Our Parks and Recreation Department, the Ryans, and specifically Eric, Again, just delivering benches and trash cans and making sure we had enough of those things and talking through the logistics of that. When it came to the Tdora, I would tell you that the city attorney, the city clerk did amazing work on the the ordinance, but then also the application that we needed to file in order to be able to have that first TDORA. The Public Safety Committee, they were wonderful in just kind of working through, since this was the first one, what needs to be in place and how they kind of saw it happening. So I just, I really appreciate all of that. And then I want to, I'm going to embarrass him, but I also want to recognize Mark Stevens. He showed up at 6 o'clock in the morning on the day of the event to help us check in vendors that day. And so that was tremendous and kind of a boost to all of us to see him there and doing that. And then I do want to clarify Mr. Berg's question about the 2028 Reconstruction Relief Fund. This came, it was a brainchild of David Poppey. At the big pop-up, he had a dunk tank that Jonathan Lampe took part of and our Mayor Stocks took part of. And Chief Brower, yes, I'm sorry, yes. I'm going to forget a name. I just know I am. But yes. And so they raised some funds through that dunk tank, and the amount was $1,000. So we, as a Main Street program, he wanted to give that for Main Street program to hold. And obviously, in future board meetings, we'll be discussing how we can bring that money to a larger amount and also how it will be used during 2028. I would like to tell you the really great news is that the TDORA was successful, and there were no reported incidents. After the event, we did reach out to the different city departments to ask what worked and what we could do better next time, because we are being told we have to do it again. And that's something that all three of the entities really value. We are always striving to do better and to hear what we could improve on. And especially in the case of such a big event, we want to hear from our city departments, our fire and our police, what we could do better to make it more safe. It wasn't just about getting through the event. It was about working together and figuring out how we could make it even better next year. So I really want to thank everyone who helped It was a great example of what can happen when the Main Street program, tourism, the chamber, and the city work collaboratively. Another part of economic vitality is welcoming new businesses. Since January, we have welcomed several new businesses downtown. Crystal Clear Estimates, Sarah's Boutique, The Garden Lady's Obsession, 11 East, and Beauty Beyond Labels are all new businesses, and they bring something different to our downtown and give people another reason to come. We are also continuing to make business visits on a regular part of my day, and those visits give me an opportunity to hear directly from business owners what is going well, what challenges they are facing, and where we can potentially help. I think those relationships are extremely important because Main Street needs to be connected to the people who are actually operating businesses downtown. Our fourth pillar is promotion. And this is probably the most visible part of what we do because this is where we create reasons for people to come downtown. We've continued with the music on Main, which brings music, food, drinks, and people into Benson Family Town Square. We have one on Saturday, September 12th. That's next week. The... Band Cherry Pie will be there. We've also continued the farmers market after hours, giving people another reason to spend some time downtown on a Friday evening. And it's been exciting to see that some of the businesses take advantage of that and have tried different promotions to draw people down to them. And then we just completed the big pop-up, which I just discussed. Our Art on Main Art Banner Program was showcased this summer with banners hanging all along Main Street. And our live auction is on September 16th at Lions Irish Pub. We have Witch's Brew Bingo in October. The Parks and Rec Department is working with Main Street to collaborate on October 31st. They do Boo Bash at Benson Family Town Square. And then we have Pumpkinpalooza. We're going to have a large map of just all the things that are going on that day so that families can come down and enjoy all kinds of fall fun. And then we have our biggest retail event of the year. I'm very excited about it. It's our women's only weekend. or affectionately called WOW. That is November 20th through the 22nd. This year we're planning on 400 swag bags. Last year we sold 350 in 13 and a half hours. So at that time, discussed with several businesses, we're going to up the bags to 400 and see if we can sell that many bags. in that short time again. And also, we're adding a lot of the businesses. In talking with them in my business visits, we are going to have many events happening at businesses so that they can showcase different things. Draeger's is going to do some flower arranging. Litteratus is going to have yoga and coffee. There's going to be some other things that are going on that I think we'll just add to the weekend. So when I look at the last quarter, I think the biggest takeaway is that all four pillars are active and working together. We are investing in historic preservation. We're building community partnerships and increasing volunteer involvement. We're supporting existing businesses and welcoming new ones. And we are creating events and promotions that bring people downtown. But none of that happens in isolation. The success of Main Street depends on collaboration with our businesses, property owners, volunteers, community organizations, city staff, city departments, and the Common Council. I want to thank all of you for your continued support of the Watertown Main Street program. We have a lot of exciting things happening, and I'm looking forward to continuing to build on that momentum and make downtown Watertown an even stronger place to work, shop, dine, visit, and invest. Thank you.

Thank you.

Did you have questions? I think so.

Anybody have questions for Stephanie?

And you can't talk about the dunk tank, Mr. Lampe. Okay. Dunk tank? I was going to say a thimble full of chlorine in that thing next year would do wonders.

Okay. I'll let David know.

Thank you. Two guys here got injured.

I know. I heard. I'm sorry. I won't talk about the fact that I did contribute to the two getting dunked too. Yeah. Yeah.

We got a comment. I'm not sure what that says either. Okay. All right. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right. Mr. Mayor. Yes, Mr. Malenke. I'd like to make a motion to amend our agenda for this evening.

Okay.

To move item eight, new business to after item 11, our resolutions.

Okay. Okay. And anything with the resolutions, Mr. Blanke?

Yes, I'd also like to make a motion to move item 11C after our new business, as that resolution is directly related to one of the items we will need to discuss in closed session. Okay, thank you, Mr. Blanke.

I think that will take care of everybody in attendance on 2. Okay, motion by Blanke. Second. Second by Lampe. Okay, any discussion on that?

To clarify, this is just on resolutions, not on ordinances?

Correct. To move new business, the entire eight and the resolution C to the end of the meeting. Everything else would stay intact. It would take care of everybody in the audience to be able not to be here for the closed session. Okay. Any other further questions on that? Okay, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, thank you. We'll then skip with that motion. We'll move on to miscellaneous business. We have the payroll summary from August 5th through August 18th.

Questions on that?

Okay, we'll then move on to ordinances. We have A, ordinance 26-26, ordinance to amend the adopted plan development PD overlay district general development plan GDP. For the Oxbow at 100 East Division Street, pin number 291-0815-0412-029 and 104 East Division Street, pin number 291-0915-3343-053. Sponsored by myself and the Planning Commission. It's first reading. Mr. Mayor, I'll move for adoption. Okay, motion by Berg. I'll second. Second by Davis. Okay. Questions, comments on that? Developers are here if you have any questions for them. I want one of you to come on up Sirius. It's been a whole week or so, so yeah.

Any questions?

Mr. Blanke.

So I was on planning commission when this was first approved. and then this came back to plan commission and council for a revision months already and it was a few short months after we approved the initial at that time i asked if any other revisions were anticipated and was told no what happened

The numbers didn't work out. We needed to add density to the project. So, um, we had added additional units. So, in terms of the financial impact on it. as we received our bids in from our contractors, it just wasn't going to make financial sense. So we were able to do the value engineering, add additional units, not change the configuration of the building, but improve on the overall financial viability of the project.

Do you anticipate any future changes? No. Thank you.

Mr. Burke, go ahead.

Yeah, one of the things, I actually am the council representative on the plan commission, so I was there and our plan commission did unanimously recommend this to the council for approval. That's the background of that topic. I do have some things to maybe make comment on, but one of the things that I asked our finance director was on this project, once it's built to your satisfaction or completion, Is there some estimated value of that property, at least initially, from the appraisals you've gotten on it and what you think it's going to have for initial value?

We do. And the number is going to be somewhere in that $15 million range. $15 to $18 million. Okay. All right. The total cost of the project is $18 million. It'll be something less than that in terms of the appraised value. Okay.

Okay.

I don't have any other question, but I will make a comment later on.

Mayor, I have a couple of procedural things. First of all, if someone could walk us through what the difference between 2626 and 2627 are and whether or not the basically the informational packet that was attached to each of those ordinances, are those identical more or less where they show what the building is?

Do you want to go through the changes you made or the minor outside ones? It's not necessarily about the changes.

This is more of a procedural thing. We have two ordinances lined up here, 26 and 27. Like what's the difference between the two ordinances that we're expected to pass tonight? They look very similar.

I see your question on this, Mr. Lampe.

It looks like A, if I could, Mayor. Yeah, go ahead. A is approving the general development plan. B is approving the precise implementation plan.

Could I have a definition of what those are in this context? I have not served under the Planning Commission, so.

Is Brian on the phone at all? I can get you those.

Go to Stavis.

I just remember that in our Watertown code, it's specified exactly what goes into each of those, and they're very, very similar as I recall. Yes.

Okay. We need them both?

Yes.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay. That will change with the zoning code rewrite.

it would yes i'm going to ask brian to maybe email everybody to explain that okay anybody any other side of any questions or we have two people online okay i'm just curious i know that

Oh, I thought somebody was talking online. I know that townhomes were included in the initial, and I'm just wondering if you could give a refresher on why those were.

They just weren't financially feasible. It just simply came down to just not a financial, the cost to build them versus what we would be able to get in terms of the rent just became financially unfeasible. So, what we did do is we modified a couple of the 1st floor units to have exterior entrances. So that they so. It is 3 of them are town home like, but, uh. We were able to incorporate that concept, but the general town home concept just. Didn't become feasible.

Okay.

Okay. Anybody else. Not for him, no. Mr. I don't have any questions.

Okay, thank you, Mr. Annette.

Okay. Mr. Lamb.

I just wanted to make a brief comment that this development is, you know, partially in District 2, which I would represent. I'm just very supportive of this type of development and what it's bringing to the neighborhood. Okay.

Mr. Burt, go ahead. So just in summary to maybe get additional discussion on the topic, this project has been in the works for way over a year, and it's taken a lot of time for a lot of good reasons. One of the complicating factors, again, that we all know is that it was situated between Jefferson and Dodge County, and they've made a special provision in the construction of this larger building to have a separation between the Jefferson County and the Dodge County portion. And that in itself created a lot of the delay and obviously added to the cost and it made it more complicated in having it ready for us to take action on. And again, you heard from this owner here that the feasibility and the the financial ability for this to make sense as a project is no easy task. And I am all in favor of redevelopment. That piece of land was obviously a slaughterhouse at one point in time. It was acquired for investment and it was actually in a position where it could have been a variety of different options, but these people came forward and they're providing you know, it looks like 75 units of housing, up to 150 to 200 people that would potentially reside there. That's going to have a financial impact on our downtown area and our city as a whole by the fact that these people are now here. And if they left houses in town somewhere, then that's going to create an opportunity for new housing for somebody in the home that they are leaving, to go into this if that becomes the option. But one way or another, it's going to create lots of opportunity in a positive way, which is what you need when you're going to have vibrancy and momentum as a city, which we're all trying to do as council members. So that's why I appreciate the risk. That's why TIFs, you know, in this particular example, are a necessity to help offset the risk and to help them take this type of task on and provide housing, which is a very basic necessity for business and for industry and for our schools, you got to have people. And people are the ingredient for a community to have momentum and positive things happening. So that's a major reason why I want to be in favor of it. I know there is some impact on the neighborhood. I'm very sensitive to people that are affected. I asked the owner and his people at our plan commission meeting And I got a reassurance to them in conversation that they are aware of the fact that they are surrounded by small residential homes and some commercial in a way that they have to be sensitive to. So that gave me some good feeling there. But the bigger picture is that it's going to create a benchmark and a threshold for other people to look at our town in a positive way. for investment and I've said before and I just want to say again briefly that I have the ability to get a feel for investors because of the kind of real estate that I do. I do residential but primarily commercial and I hear the comments about our town and I hear a lot of positives but I also hear some hesitation and it's because we have to become more obvious in the eyes of investors for them to come and become another project after this one so that we have the momentum that's going to create additional property valuation and additional homes and housing so that we have some of the ingredients that are going to create that momentum that people are looking for as a community. Again, effort's very important, and we're making the effort, but it has to, at some point in time, come up with projects like this that we take action on so that we actually get the action turning into reality, a project that they can actually look at And a few years back, you know, this was just vacant land. Now it's got an opportunity to be, according to that recommendation from their people that are doing the assessment, they're feeling it's going to have a high value, somewhere in that $50 million range. That's a lot of money on two acres of land. And that's no small task to create that kind of value on a small piece of land. In exchange for that, they're doing a lot of things to address quality, underground parking, they have a community room and they have other amenities which are going to make it appealing and are going to allow them to get the higher rent and that higher rent is going to actually make the case for the kind of value that they're hoping to get. So it's a process. It takes time. We have to be on board with these ideas ideally to make this community move forward like we want it to. I know that each package on TIF is a separate project. I know whatever we gave is what we had to give for this project. And in order for them to commit to the project and do what they're doing, to take the risk they're taking. And this TIF that they're in is TIF 8. And TIF 8, in looking into it today, is going to actually be in existence up until 2049. That's a long time. But this project has an ability based on the way it's been structured through the management agreement. At some point, they're going to reach their credits that they're going to be issued by taxes that we give a reimbursement on. Over time, it's going to get to a point of payment. And then this property would have the ability to go on the tax roll and provide some significant property tax benefit for our community at a point in time in the future. I don't know how long it's going to take. It might take 15 years. But it's going to take at a point in time when we reach that threshold where we give them the credits that were issued in our agreement. And going forward from that point on, we're going to get a lot of property tax valuation, which we can use within the TIF if it's still in existence for other projects to help do other development that's going to help that TIF retire successfully like we've had with other ones, like TIF 4, the industrial, like TID 3 over by Walmart. Those two we can be very proud of. This one is still in its very early stages, but a project like this, if it's successful, can help pay it off sooner and help make this TIF even more successful than we might even imagine. So I'm on the side of making points in favor, and again, we'd had a lot of discussion within the plan commission, and they had to do some very unique things on stormwater because of the small piece of land that they're dealing with. Other larger projects, they put detention ponds and other things to address stormwater. They had to do a filtration system, which is very complicated, very expensive, but it addresses some of the things that they can do on a small piece of land. And that is some of the unique things that I learned that I think make it unique and challenging. And I'm just thankful that we have people willing to take risks and to get investors behind them so that they can bring something that's going to be giving value to our community long-term.

Thank you, Mr. Berg. Mr. Mayor. Go ahead, Mr. Arnett.

So based on Mr. Berg's comments, I feel compelled to comment, and that is with regard to the TID aspect of this. And I think it's very important, first of all, to distinguish between kids that are for commercial and industrial purposes and kids that are for residential. The reality is that when you put residential in a kid, that means all the other residents of the city are paying for all the services that those new residents are using for essentially a generation. It is creating a generation of additional indebtedness. to the existing taxpayers of the community that is something we need to look at very very carefully i think there can be moments where specific costs related to a project because of its unique circumstances can be a legitimate basis but just as an overall just because which is what i see a lot of going on not just watertown but in other areas around residential just because that's not That just doesn't make sense. It does not make financial sense for the taxpayers. And you add to that that you're asking them to pay for something that a majority of them can't even afford. So I was going to hold off, but since the thing was opened up, I'm just going to express that right out. there are significant concerns for me about the potential application of the TID to this project.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Arnett. Okay. Mr. Lampe, go ahead.

Thank you, Mayor. I think I just wanted a clarification. There's nothing in either of these ordinances that pertains to funding regarding TID or TIF, correct?

No. Just for the development to go through? That would come at a later time. Ms. Haas, go ahead.

So, you know, as we all know, this parcel is surrounded by, you know, single family homes predominantly and business lots. And homeowners likely selected this neighborhood because of, for that reason, because of the slower pace and the appeal of that. originally in town homes, as we discussed earlier, were included in the plan. And now they've been removed in lieu of a 75 unit apartment building. The density and magnitude of that structure will undoubtedly impact the residents there by way of sudden increase in traffic, noise pollution, and frankly, the culture of the neighborhood will change. So I just want to be cognizant of the existing homeowners there.

Okay, anything else? Okay, quick, Mr. Berg. Go ahead, sir.

One other point that I think maybe is helpful to looking at this objectively. Some of our TIFs we've done in the past, like TID 4, we actually borrowed money to develop land that we owned in order to make it improved land so that people would come onto that land and and add increment so that we could eventually retire it and pay back the city's debt that they borrowed to make that TIF a reality. TID4 was like that, and it was successful, but for several years, we had to feed TID4 because it took a while for increment to come into play to take care of the debt service, and that was just the reality of that example. What you have in this case here is you have The city is not taking on any risk because the loan is being taken on by these investors that are taking on this project. They're going to have a value for that project at some point in time, and they're going to be subject to taxes on that. We're agreeing to a credit at a point in time until a threshold of payments are made that satisfy the requirements of that developer's agreement. So it's much different. The risk is much different and much less than And we benefit from this type of a TIF. It's just that we don't get the full benefit of the valuation until that TID does retire. In the meantime, there's land within that TID 8 that because of these potential dollars that will be made available by this project at a point in time, there's land that's owned that was a previous firehouse lanes across the river. There's other vacant land next to that. And there's the land that we bought a while back next to our Benson Square. that we tried to turn into an apartment project and Terrence Wald was not someone we could work with so it fell back to us and we continue to own it. But there's parcels within TID 8 that have the ability to be additional increment and these types of examples here are going to be creating the valuation and the vibrancy along the river and in areas of TID 8 that are going to make us proud of it at a point in time in the future. We need examples to encourage other people to take risk. This will provide that incentive for other people to come into that TID 8 area and to also invest in a way that will add more increment and help pay it off and make it successful like the other ones we've had. There's no reason to feel there's a risk on this part. The large risk is on these investors taking on the project. And we have an ability. They took on the loan. We're going to give them a credit on taxes. They pay us. And so it's really working in our favor. And we're getting the benefit of it by allowing this to move forward.

I was trying to think. What year did Johnsonville burn? Was that 2015? It's been vacant for about 10 years, 11 years?

I think you're right. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Anything else on this ordinance? We'll do it twice here. Okay. I think Berg made the original motion, Megan.

Berg?

Aye.

Nattucki? Blankey?

Aye.

Smith?

Aye.

Arnett?

No.

Haas? No. Moldenhauer?

Aye.

Davis? Aye. Lampe? Nteki? Motion carried.

Just make a no vote right now, I suppose. All right, thank you.

We'll have to do it again here.

Ordinance 26-27, the ordinance to amend the adopted plan development PD overlay district precise implementation plan, PIP, for the Expo at 100 East Division Street, pin number 291-0815-0412. and 104 East Division Street, pin number 291-0915-3343-053. Sponsored by myself and the Planning Commission on its first reading.

I'll move for adoption.

Okay, motion by Berg. Second by Molenhauer, okay. Hopefully not as many comments on this one. We should be okay, but anybody have any questions on it? Okay, a little faster. Thank you, Megan.

Burke?

Aye.

Ntuky? Blankey?

Aye.

Smith?

Aye.

Arnett?

No.

Haas?

No.

Moldenhauer?

Aye.

Davis? Aye. Motion carried.

I'll vote too if you want. Aye.

I'm sorry. Alder Lampy? Motion carried.

Okay. Thanks for voting, Mr. Lampe. Okay, I guess we'll move on to Resolutions N. We have Resolutions A, Exhibit 9889, Resolution to Urge the State of Wisconsin's Strength, Enforcement, and Coordination to Combat Human Sex Trafficking, sponsored by Alder Blanke. Mr. Mayor? Yes, Mr. Blanke. I'll move for 9889. Okay, motion by Blanke. Mr. Wallnauer?

So in front of public safety and licensing board, we've been considering having a massage establishment ordinance that would in effect, the concept is to help crack down on sex trafficking by forcing business license on any massage establishment now while that's a goal that of course we want to end the sex trafficking however a couple of things with that is number one it to me it seems just like the drug trade and what's happening with something like that is you're going after the small fish. You're getting the street level issues. This is a much larger issue. And from everything that I've been told, the issue is that prosecutions... Are not happening in a timely manner. The investigations are. Basically into. Just the prostitution. Not the sex trafficking. Because proving the higher levels. Is more difficult. From what I've been told. The. State. And the county prosecutions. Don't move quickly on these. And. Even with this ordinance, if we do pass an ordinance that requires a license, that doesn't stop the sex trafficking. That just moves it somewhere else. So we're not actually solving the problem. We're just pushing it out of our backyard into someone else's backyard. The state needs to fix the problem. And I'd like to see what the response from the Governor Evers is. The Attorney General call, Senator Jagler and Representative Pennerman is. And what their intention is to do something about this. It's a bigger issue than the local level. And I think we need to find out what exactly their plans are and what exactly they're going to do to help shut down these cartels that are trafficking these women.

Thank you, Mr. Blanke. I support the purpose of this resolution as it is titled, Coordination to Combat Human Sex Trafficking, and urge the state of Wisconsin to strengthen that enforcement. I read recently that at the end of this budget cycle, the state is anticipating having a $3 billion surplus. And so one would think that with some of that $3 billion, additional funding could be used to help enforcement and coordination for human sex trafficking. So as we move through the first page of this resolution, I'm supportive of the wording and the information that is shared there. I was interested to learn more about the Human Trafficking Council and did spend some time reading the report that was linked there. Thank you for putting that in. One of the things we're asked to consider are the obstacles that are that the human trafficking report indicated that they were encountering. And the only obstacle they listed was the lack of funding. So I looked into that. And as I dug into it, I could kind of understand. There was an amount of $155,000 budgeted originally for the Human Trafficking Council. And then when it went to the Finance Committee prior to the finalization of the budget, that $155,000 was going to be for one full-time person and some support staff. And from my perspective, I understand why the finance committee there did not approve that, because I would much rather see that $155,000 go to the Human Trafficking Bureau, which is under the Criminal Investigation Division, which is under the Wisconsin DOJ. It would seem to make sense to put that money where it can get the most work done. So that was interesting for me to learn about. When we turn to the second page, though, I start to see a difference in the way that this is worded. And you start to see a transition take place where the pending ordinance starts to, or the resolution that's before us starts to consider and make some policy statements about the pending massage establishment ordinance that is working its way through committee. And I think as legislators, we need to be very careful that we do not make policy statements in this resolution before that ordinance has actually had a chance to come to this council for full discussion. So there are several places where it's discussing making conclusions that actually this council has not decided. And for that reason, I think we need to be very wary as to the language that's used and be very careful that we're not making policy statements inadvertently that could impact discussions going forward. I do think that this resolution has merit, though. And I do think that there are ways that it could just be revised. One thing to keep in mind is I've been very interested in this topic since March. And just to learn more about it, I reached out to the U.S. Attorney's Office and was put in contact with an assistant U.S. attorney who is the head of human trafficking in our region. And it was a very fascinating conversation. But something she reminded me of is that there's two parts to human trafficking. There's sex trafficking. and there's labor trafficking. This resolution is targeting human sex trafficking, but even under that, human sex trafficking, we're talking about child sex trafficking, we're talking about solicitation more at the prostitution street level, we're talking about brothels, we're talking about forced participation in pornography, illicit massage businesses. So what I would like to see this resolution do is fall in line with the title, where the focus is solely on human sex trafficking. And we don't delve into a matter that's still before us in committee and has not been resolved yet. And so I do have a lot of suggested revisions. Some of them are short. and could be just reworded. Some of them are a little more lengthy, but I'm hesitant to bring those before us tonight because it'd be very tedious to work all the way through them. I think it would take up a lot of time and be a little messy. What I'd like to do is to make a motion and this motion is debatable. I would not make a motion at this point if it wasn't debatable because it's not my intent to stop any kind of discussion. But my motion would be to send this resolution back to Mr. Blanke and I assume did you work with the attorney's office on this or solely Mr. Blanke?

I worked with the clerk on this.

Okay, so to send it back to Mr. Blanke in the clerk's office, and then those of you, if you're like me, that you have suggested revisions, this would give us an opportunity to send those revisions to Mr. Blanke for his consideration. I think we have time to do this. As I was looking into it, We're in a tricky spot anyway with the elections, but I was looking into the budgeting process and it looks like the budgeting process at the state level is taking place September through November for departments. They're getting their budgets ready. And so I think we would have time to just consider some revisions and then put this forward as a strong resolution that focuses solely on human sex trafficking and doesn't get into some of the other issues that we've not yet Resolved as a council. I would also say that I did reach out to our senator and a representative I spoke to several other individuals at the state level the massage credentialing board and others and Across the board there seems to be consensus that this needs this issue Whether it's massage illicit massage businesses or human sex trafficking is an issue that involves a involvement at all levels, local, state, and federal. And there's an enthusiasm, and it seems like there's a great consensus moving forward in helping to make some difference here. I don't know if I made that a formal resolution motion, but I'll do it right now. I would like to make a motion to send this back to Mr. Blankey in the clerk's office and to encourage, uh, Alders to send, uh, suggested revisions to them to consider. That's my motion.

Motion by Davis. I'll second that. Okay.

Mr. Mayor point of order.

Yes, Mr. Arnott.

I'm not familiar with a send back to an individual legislature type of motion under Robert's rules.

I'll make an amendment to that. I meant to say I would like to refer this back to Mr. Blanke in the clerk's office. So it's a motion of referral.

The referral would be to another part of this body, not to a single member. I believe what is actually being projected here as a motion to table to a time indeterminate.

So I was not familiar that it had to be referred back to a body like a committee. Because this came from Mr. Blanke, I was making a referral back to Mr. Blanke.

Mr. Smith, go ahead. There's no requirement that I know of that any referral motion dealing with a piece of legislation before the council needs to go back to a standing committee or some other constituted committee or board. This resolution stands on its own as it is presented to the council. It's presented to us this evening from an individual member of our council. It's not here by an individual council member and a committee or through a committee. It is here from an individual member of the council. So the notion of the referral is to simply return it to from whence it came, which is to say, the originator of the resolution. So it's perfectly appropriate to refer this back to its author under the terms of the specific motion. I don't see any problem whatsoever with this being a referral motion. And there is no organizational group or committee or commission that would receive it back because it didn't originate from any such entity. It's here unusually, and this is a very unusual status from an individual member of the council, which is perfectly fine. We've had it in the past, but it is not common. And that's why a referral motion back to this authoring member of the council is the only way that the referral motion can be properly made.

I want to say that I applaud Alderperson Blanke for the initiative he put this together in a way that it identifies an obvious problem and a concern. This Human Trafficking Council, he's basically making the case for them to be given more funding and more type of purpose as far as addressing the concern that he's raised in his resolution. We have people in our legislature that are water tone people that can be sensitive to this, and I feel there's a decent chance, if approved by this council and sent forward, that it's going to get some attention. And we know the topic of human trafficking is a topic being talked about by a lot of people in different backgrounds for a lot of good reason, because there's an obvious problem and it's not getting better. So for him to bring it to the attention of our legislature and individuals and ask them to take it to a higher level of funding and purpose is appropriate. And I think the timing's good. And I think it does help address the points that he has a concern with. I'm in favor of voting for it as is.

Okay, longer discussion I thought we'd have here. All right, Mr. Lampe.

So in general, I'm not a fan of resolutions that try to appeal to a different body to hopefully do something. This is, to me, this is all tilting at windmills. No one's going to care other than the folks that are seated here today. And I'm starting to worry that on a council, we're on a trend here. I think this is the third time in the last couple of months, whether it was for the health fund, whether it was a random appeal, I think through our economic development side. Now we have one on sex trafficking, just sort of throwing it at the wind and hoping that it sticks. I do not like these resolutions that appeal to the state for aid. So basically my voting on this is basically going to be however it goes to try to avoid passing resolution and avoid spending council time working on it further. So I'll probably oppose both the amendment and the resolution as it comes forward.

Okay, I think I'll also vote on the motion by Sorry, by Davis and second by Smith. Motion by Davis, second by Smith to send back to Mr. Blanke and the clerk's office. Okay. Take a roll on that.

Davis? Aye. Lampe? No. Burke?

No.

Ntuky? No. Blanke?

No.

Smith aye Arnett no Haas no Moldenhauer aye Ntuki motion failed okay was it 5-3 yes okay I'm sorry back to original one that I believe

Motion by Blanke, second by Molenhauer, if I'm correct. The resolution as is. Any further discussion on that? Mr. Smith, go ahead.

Well, I'd like to echo Alderman Berg for his commendation of this initiative. I also believe there's a lot of truth in what Alderman Lampe had to say, which is Resolutions are well intended, oftentimes constitute a very reasoned approach to an issue and have an innate capacity to gather a lot of dust at whatever level we're hoping will step in and act on an issue that either needs additional focus or is beyond the scope of what we can do locally. I intend to support this, and I am very concerned about the issue of this kind of criminal trafficking across the board. It is an extremely problematic situation for us locally, and we have a jurisdictional issue where there is almost a preemption by the state and therein the reasonableness of making this resolution to the state because we really do need their involvement to make any kind of an effective action for this problem at levels where it's going to have to be engaged or it is just going to be inadequate and the problem is going to continue and it's going to continue to build. One of the comments earlier was if we were to take action locally and we did not have companion involvement or enhanced involvement by the state, that all we would do is address it on a very minimal basis, possibly doing little more than moving the chess pieces around on the board. My view is we need to approach this from a comprehensive basis. I think we need to do everything we can to encourage the state to get involved, to be active in the prosecution of this type of criminality, And I believe we need to give the police all of the tools that we possibly can to allow them to be the local agents for doing everything possible to address this increasing problem in our local area. And hypothetically, if there's any truth to the fact that we're simply going to pressure criminal elements to move to different locations, I think that would be preferable to allowing them to remain within the city because we're not doing anything or we're not able to do as much as we would like to if the police had the tools that they need. So I am in favor of the ordinance that is not before us tonight but is a companion to a broad-based approach to trafficking and criminal trafficking across the board. I'm going to vote for this because I would love to see it come to pass. I'd love to see the state get involved and become active and become the crime fighters that they should be. But when they make it difficult because of, like I mentioned, almost a preemption approach to prosecutions of these criminal elements, then we need to look to ways that we can enhance our local police department's ability to address the problem. And if we don't, these problems will grow. These problems are insidious. They cause tremendous harm in our community. People are hurt beyond compare. And for us to do anything less than everything possible would be for us to be deficient in our responsibilities. So I am just simply saying, I'm going to support this. I commend Alderman Blanke for what he has done. And whether it is through the licensing board or through the public safety committee, I would like to see this ordinance brought back to the council at the earliest opportunity so we can give the police every conceivable additional tool to combat this terrible evil that is becoming increasingly prevalent and damaging within our community.

Thank you, Mr. Smith. Miss Davis, go ahead.

And I'll keep my comments brief. I want to support this, but there's just troublesome wording in here that I can't get behind. On the second page, the fourth whereas says, whereas requiring individual municipalities to establish separate licensing. There's no one requiring individual municipalities to establish separate licensing. For the next whereas, whereas the city of Watertown believes that human sex trafficking is more appropriately and effectively addressed through a coordinated statewide effort. Does the city of Watertown, has this council said that we believe that human sex trafficking is more appropriately addressed at state enforcement? And remember, human trafficking is much more than illicit massage businesses. And there are more of those types of references where it's purporting that the city of Watertown, that would be this council, believes something that I don't that has not been established. And so I very, very much want to support this. But because of some of the problematic wording that deals with regulatory assumptions that have not been supported by any action by this council, I will not be able to support it. And that's kind of disappointing.

Anything else? Okay, I'll take a vote then.

Blankey?

Aye.

Smith?

Aye.

Arnett?

Aye.

Haas? Aye. Moldenhauer?

Aye.

Davis? No. Lampe?

No.

Berg? Aye. Ntuki? Aye. Motion carried.

Okay.

Okay. Exhibit 9890, resolution to approve new solid waste rates, sponsored by Alder and Nett and the Public Works Commission.

I'll move for adoption, Mr. Mayor.

Okay, motion by Berg. Senator Mollenhauer. Okay. Any questions for Mrs. Winkleman? Mr. Lampy, go ahead.

What's the current solid waste rate that we're raising from?

Okay, thank you. 14 away to a ton?

Okay.

Mr. Blanke, go ahead.

When was the last time we had a rate study on our solid waste utility?

I don't know about a study. The last time we raised the rate was...

I just want to point out that as with our water and stormwater, all of our utilities, and this is not the fault of any department head, there were certain extenuating circumstances in 2020. And because of that, the directive was made to push off these studies. Um, unfortunately now we are paying the price for that. So that's why the increase seems larger as it did with water than it would have been had we kept up with this on a more annual basis.

Let's see, this is going to 15, 18 a month. Okay. So I believe you're in public works, so water, stormwater, and now... I'm not on public works, but I was when we addressed water and stormwater. So we've raised three of the last, three of the four, I believe the fourth one's to come in the future here soon? Yes. Okay. Okay, good question. Go ahead, Mr. Lampe.

Thank you. And I'd say there's plenty of room on the Let's follow our increases with rate of inflation bandwagon. I am already there, whether it's this fee or it's a few of the other things that have come through council in terms of indexing expenses and revenue. For this one though, the increase, if I'm calculating this right, is 8% or so, which again seems a lot like a one year jump. But if you divide that back into what the actual rate of inflation is since 2019, it is minuscule. We are raising rates on this particular item at far less than inflation. So this is an area where our citizens have been getting a pretty good deal despite the increase that we have coming forward.

Okay, Mr. Boeing, can you go ahead? I may. We had this discussion at our last council meeting about indexing to the rate of inflation. I don't support it. And one of the reasons I don't is because it makes government apathetic to going out and getting bids and working to keep costs down. It makes us accountable to have to vote for these increases and thereby we then encourage our department heads to go out and get better rates and sharpen the pencils. And we've seen, where we are tipping now, we've gone to a different location with our solid waste because we got a much better rate there. If we would just index to the cost of inflation and everything keeps going up, well, we have more money. So let's just stick with what we've got because it's great. And we don't look at it because we're not required to, because the amount of money just keeps going up. It's for our citizens benefit, that we are held accountable by having to vote on these things.

Hello, Mr. Byrd.

Yeah, Alderperson Blankey's point is right on target, and I appreciate the reminder of our duty, and he's right on the point he's making. I'm looking, too, at that $1.10. I think we were told the number, but right now I don't have it, and if you don't mind if our Stacy can just remind us, what is the projected revenue that we're expecting to get from that increase? But the overall point is I will go along with the increase, even though, again, it aggravates that water bill and everybody increasingly just gets mad at us because of that water bill continuing to go up in a way that is irritating. But it's for good reason on this example. As long as the revenues and the budget that they have, if it creates revenues beyond their budget needs, then it's going to create some balance that can carry forward. And we know that a reserve account and money set aside can be very beneficial going forward. So it's really a win-win as long as they stay to the budget and don't use the extra dollars for unnecessary expenditure.

You know, I think we spend on, I mean, Some of the mechanics, but our garbage trucks are almost $400,000. That's what we're paying for it. Yeah.

So we're paying for them.

If you got, okay. Anything else? All right. I think I vote.

Berg. Aye. Natecky. Aye. Lanky.

Aye.

Smith.

Aye.

Arnett.

Aye.

Haas. Aye. Moldenhauer. Aye. Davis. Aye. Lampy? Aye. Motion carried.

Okay.

Thank you.

I think that was it there.

Okay, we'll go back onto new business based on Mr. Blanke's request earlier. Do we think I'm all together? I'll entertain a motion to take all the closed sessions together at the same time.

Are we not going to do 11C.

That one was decided to go after new business because we have to take care of...