Finance Committee - Regular Meeting

Alright. Good evening, everyone. We'll call the Tuesday, 09/09/2025 meeting of the finance committee to order. We have a full committee this evening, thus a full quorum. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance.

All right. Next item on the agenda is public comments. Is there any members of the public here this evening that wishes to address the finance committee? All right. Seeing no public comment, we'll move on to item number 4A, which is approval of minutes for the August 26. Any changes or additions to those minutes from the committee? All right. Seeing none, those minutes are approved to unanimous consent. So that'll move us into our business items tonight. So we do have a couple of traditional business items before we jump into the capital and CIP budget.

So we'll go to item number 5A, which is review and possible action on the flock safety contract for three additional cameras. Gentlemen? Gentlemen, if you guys could introduce yourself for the folks at home, and the floor is yours. David

Daley. I'm a lieutenant with the Waukesha Police Department.

Tom Wagner, assistant chief Waukesha PD.

So we're here before you tonight. We were approached by Woodman's. They want to donate $20,000 to the, city of Waukesha Police Department to be able to purchase three more flock cameras. That would be enough for us to cover two years of expenses including installation and the additional storage fee that we need for open records stuff. And that would be in addition to the that we are already are currently paying for so that would bring our total to 22.

The only thing that Woodman's asked of us is that it be used as a benefit to the area around Woodman's, not just Woodman itself. So they're talking the car dealers over on Moreland, 164 Main Street, the strip mall with Starbucks, Culver's, all that that's in there. So we would work with FLAC to strategically place these cameras so that we can maximize the benefit that we would get. We're just asking for acceptance of the donation so that we can go ahead and approve the contract.

The $20,000 from Woodman's, which is great. So thank you to Woodman's. So that's going to cover just so we have this straight, it's going to cover the additional three cameras and two years of overall flock, the flock contract?

So it would be a total of two years. So it would be $10,000 for the first year, which includes the installation and the additional storage and then one additional year. So two years total.

Is it just for those three cameras or is that for the entire fleet of flock cameras that we have in the city?

Just those three cameras.

Okay. So they're going to cover the purchase of the cameras and then the first two years of the contract or the additional contract for the storage and everything else that we have with flock? Correct. Okay. Anything else, gentlemen? Questions from the committee on this item? Alderman Lemke. How

would you rate the success of the 19 cameras we have already? I've heard some stories good but I just want to hear it from yourself.

I've been involved in the FLOP program since we brought it on back in 2021. And it has been a hugely successful tool for us. It's a tool that is used by multiple people every day. We've been able to solve crime very quickly. We have numerous success stories that are probably one of the best tools that we've been able to have at the police department.

Thank you. Aldeperson Alvin Slavin?

Yeah I've heard success stories about the program as well. My only curiosity is that after the two years I'm assuming that that's going to be something that's going to be part of the operating budget for the city. What is the rough estimate of cost per year after those two years?

So it would be roughly probably $10,000 a year. However at the conclusion of the two year contract we have thirty days to decide whether or not we want to keep the cameras. So it's very possible that if we find that they're not beneficial for us that we would just let them go and then FLAC would uninstall them and we would turn them back over to FLAC.

Sounds good. Thank you so much. Mhmm.

Any other questions for police department? Alderson Cuisine.

Thank you. District one is has Woodman's in it and I thank you for bringing this up. You mentioned the strip mall over there that's actually I do believe that's town of Brookfield. I mean, can aim the cameras wherever you want, but I'm pretty sure that is Brookfield. And our I don't think the police department wants to get in the business of like having businesses. I would like extra flock presence in my neighborhood. Here's some money for that. I just I'm grateful for this donation. It's just the the little caveat of I would like to say or have a say in the matter representing well, I just don't want a business saying, here's the donation, but I'd really like them pointed at my business. Just that little caveat seems odd.

Right. And that's why just to clarify in the strip mall, I'm talking about the one that's right adjacent to Woodman's that has the Starbucks. And I think it's like Orangetheory, Calder's, Waukesha State Bank.

That is in District 1. I apologize. I was thinking to the other.

But as far as so that is a discussion that we had with Woodman's and they were they want to be very hands off with us. They just want to give us the money. They just ask that they be in the area and that is why that we're looking at different roadways like Manhattan, Main Street, Moreland and not actually on women's property.

Thank you because that road is also a private road. So thank you very much and thank you outside of Woodman's.

Else? I'll make a motion to accept the grant from Woodman's in the amount of $20,000 and to modify the contract with FLAC accordingly. Is there a second? Second by alderperson Helben Slavin. I have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Alright. We'll do a voice vote. All those in favor sign aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? That item passes unanimously. Gentlemen, thank you. Bring us to item number five b, which is review and act on a request to the purchase of three fixed route buses from Gillig LLC. Brian, if you would introduce yourself for the folks at home and the floor is yours.

Thank you very much. Brian Ingleking, transit manager for the city. Our request is to purchase three replacement fixed route buses that would be delivered in 2027. I spoke of this at the show and tell meeting. We have a total of eight buses that'll hit their useful life in 2027.

And so obviously, we can't replace all of them in one year. That's too big of an expense. It just our balancing of our fleet. And so what we're proposing is to receive three of those in 2027. And then we would get the rest of the twenty twenty five fleet taken care of the following year.

But one of the things we would do is when we'd receive those three buses, we would actually retire five. So we would reduce the fixed fleet by two in '27. The reason for this is because if read our cover sheets when we've made service changes, we've said there is both operational savings and capital savings and this would be the start of the capital savings because we'd be reducing we'd start to reduce our fixed fleet. These would be purchased with 100% federal funds. We have 80% grant and then we reimburse the city share with federal relief dollars.

So there is no city dollars involved. Why are we coming to you here right before the CIP? What we can do, we can have additional savings. I didn't know that we're going to even get this quote in time to take advantage of this, but we are due to a lot of issues with equipment and changes of prices due to tariffs and things of that nature. Gillig had originally told us it might take four months, which would have meant we would have to get a quote, which would have meant we would have gotten it right about now.

So it might have been too late to get it. But anyways, we were able to get it towards the end of last month. We've reviewed it and it's a good quote. And so if we purchase the buses, if the council authorizes purchase next week, we can issue a PO before the third year of the state contract that we buy this off would kick in. So we would not have to pay PPI, which is the producer's price index, which is the index that's used on these on this contract.

And so total savings would be between 80,000 to $120,000 if we make that purchase now. We could wait and but then issue the PO next month, but then we're paying probably an extra $100,000 so for the same bus. So it seemed prudent to bring this matter to the committee tonight. With that, I can take any questions.

Thank you, Brian. Questions from the committee? Aldeperson Lundke.

I know that when my constituents talk to me about buses, they say in Waukesha, we don't need buses because they're always empty. I'm in favor of having buses, but then they always say to me, can't we get shorter buses so we're not wasting as much gas? And I always tell them, well, the federal government only pays for the long buses, and so they're coming to us at a at a reduced cost because they're the big buses in today's quote effectively zero. Am I correct in telling them that?

No, you can we can purchase whatever vehicle you'd like. It's pretty much where the industry is. We actually our 35 foot bus is a medium sized heavy duty it's called a heavy duty bus. There are 30 foot buses. Quite frankly, they don't handle they wouldn't be able to handle the loads on like half of our routes do quite well.

We've just consolidated from 10 routes to eight routes. The numbers are improving. We're actually at since June, we're over nine rides per hour over the system. We have some routes like Route four, which serves the South Side, it's 15 passengers per hour. There's no way we could fit that many people and you throw in a couple wheelchairs that then takes up seven seats, we'd be out of capacity on those buses.

So we have had I'm going be completely transparent. There are some routes, especially in the past, where we could have done a smaller bus definitely. But if we don't have a standardized fleet, then we're playing this game of, well, we got to put this bus on this route, this bus and that bus route. And if this bus is down, then you're getting into some murky territory as far as being able to transition or utilize your fleet. Also with the consolidation, we just don't have that many routes that have real low numbers. On the weekends, yes, some of them might not be as productive, but during the week, they're pretty productive routes.

Thank you for the explanation.

So

Brian, a I guess the question I have is from a just from a financial standpoint, looking at the book, these are in 2027?

Correct.

So what you're asking the committee to do is in a sense do what we've done with some fire apparatus and basically authorize this purchase in 2027, knowing that we can realize some savings by placing the order now?

Correct. Yes. Okay. And the other advantage too is the lead times are starting to stretch out. They're now eighteen to twenty months. If we went with the other Buy America compliant, that would be three years for a bus. I'm a little bit concerned in the future of lead times for buses, just and I won't get into the reasons, but so but that you're absolutely correct.

Okay. Other questions for Brian? I guess the the only other point that I'll make is kinda tagging along with what Rick says because I've heard that too over the years. And I think one thing that might be helpful is, you know, taking advantage of some of the social media stuff that we're doing, and perhaps we do something that talks a little bit about buses and capacity and the fact that, you know, yes, you may see a bus drive by your house and there's a couple of folks on it, but there's other parts of the route where there's a lot more people on it. I think, you know, working in conjunction with Tony's office and Rebecca to put some education out there would that may go a long way with answering some of the questions that our bosses have.

So. Okay. I'll make a motion to approve the purchase of the three fixed route buses as presented. Alderperson Elvinslavin?

I'll second.

I have a motion and a second. Any further discussion?

All

right. All those in favor sign aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? That item passes unanimously. Brian, thank you.

Thank you.

All right. Brings us to the main event, so to say. So that is item number 5C, which is further discussion and a recommendation further discussion, possible amendments and action on the twenty twenty six to 2030 capital improvement plan. So the goal for tonight is, I know Tony and Joe have a presentation that they're going to walk us through and then we're going to give the directors an opportunity to give the committee the highlights of their capital budget as what's in our 311 page book. We'll have an opportunity to ask departments questions as they come up, and we can certainly bring folks back as we go through the conversation.

Tonight, we'll also take any amendments from the committee that if there are wish if any amendments wish to be made. And then the ultimate goal would be to come to a conclusion and make a formal recommendation on just the capital budget to the to the city council tonight. And then as we all know, we're gonna kick off the operating part of the discussion a little later a little later on. So with that, gentlemen, I'll turn it over to you and we'll go from there.

Yeah. I'll get us started off from a process standpoint. So what we'll do tonight is Joe will open up with an overview of the capital investment program. From there, we'll go through and provide just a summary of each department, so more of the major projects within a department. And at that point once we get through the department, if there's questions, we'll be looking to the committee for those questions and then also bringing up the department representative to address them. So as we go through this, there are some things that I think on our end we may end up bringing up or at least to the committee's attention as well. So with that, I will turn it

over to Joe. Thank you, Tony. Just making sure that it's popping up on everyone's screen. All right, everyone have the presentation up. All right, great. All right. So this is the second meeting related to our 2026 through 2030 CIP. We are as we did it in the previous meeting, we are focusing on 2026. We understand it's a five year plan. So when we go do get through each department, if you have questions on future years, feel free to ask.

But as far as this presentation is concerned, we are focusing on '26 items at this point. But again, whatever you want to discuss as we go through it, feel free to let us know that direction. So I'm going to just give a couple of things, high note items like we kind of did the previous meeting. This is the overall summary of the five year plan. As the book entails, we have the three general categories of major projects, equipment purchases and fleet.

In total over the five year plan, we have roughly $136,000,000 in major projects. We have about $11,500,000 in equipment purchases and $31,500,000 in fleet purchases over that time period. So just that's the general overview. Now the one thing I want to remind you all of is this five year plan while it ebbs and flows in total, we did we had a concerted effort with administration and finance as well as all of the departments that are behind me to make sure that we have a consistent borrow plan. The borrowing is obviously the thing that has the biggest impact on our tax levy.

And so we have been working hard to try to make sure that we come before you with a general like replacement CIP. That's most of the projects and items that you see in here are related to things we have and that we're trying to upgrade or replace. And by doing that, we were able to come finally through with a five year plan that's pretty consistent from the first year to the fifth year. We start with $18,400,000 in 2026 and just slightly under $20,000,000 in 2030. So we did make a concerted effort to make sure that we landed there when we presented this to you.

With that in mind, this is a slide that I did discuss previous at the previous meeting, kind of gives you a little bit of history as well as what the CIP is looking to do to the tax levy. You can see we go back to 2021 and even before, that's the timeframe when debt service levy really started to shoot up because of the building projects that the city decided to accomplish. The City Hall, the Police Department renovation, Buckner Pool, those are the things that we are currently paying for. So that's why when you see that increase in levy, debt service levy, that's what that is doing. So but if you look at that so that's the blue line, the bars in that chart.

The we'll call that pink. The pink bars that you see, that's the CIP impact on top of what we already have for debt service. We are trying to flatten that line as we go from year to year. It does go up a little bit, but you can see in 2019 and 2030, we finally have a flattening of the curve. Our goal is to keep it going that direction, if not lower it in future years. So that just kind of gives you an idea of the impact of all the decisions that we've made and the decisions that the city has been able to make, but we have to pay that back. So that's what the impact is. Any questions on this particular chart before we move forward? No? Okay.

So with that, we're going to jump right into some departmental items. The first one up is Park Recreation and Forestry. And these are the major projects and items that they are planning to purchase or complete this next year. In major projects, we have Mindyola Pavilion Restrooms and Concessions stand for $2,400,000 We have a pedestrian and trail bridge project, which is really just design. And if you remember from the last meeting, talked about this being a federally funded project where 80% it would be covered by U.

DOT raise grant for $1,400,000 in total. The other major project that I wanted to note here is there's a tennis and pickleball court reconstruction plan at Prairie Park for $460,000

I'm going to jump in. So Mindyola in the project there, that has certainly generated the most interest in terms of both excitement and questions from you all along with the rest of your colleagues. So we thought it was appropriate and probably the right time to give PRF staff an opportunity to give you a comprehensive overview of that project. So what they'll do now is they'll come up and give you hopefully no more than a fifteen minute presentation on the project. And then after that, certainly we'd be happy to respond to any questions you might have after the presentation.

So with that, I guess I'll ask Ron and crew to come on up.

And Ron, again, if you could introduce yourself and your team, that would be very, very helpful.

All right. Thank you very much for taking our presentation. Thanks for the introduction. And when you mentioned the the time limit, Tony looked right at me. So with that, I'll get rolling here. First off, where are you set? Where are you set? So we have a little video. Video is very helpful, compliments of the community engagement team. And if you're not familiar with Mineola Park, this video gives you a nice quick tour.

So here you can see this was the field that was built two years ago with ARPA funding. This is during what we call game day Saturday and lots of activity. Then you see the those hash mark field. That's the first field that went in back in 2000 in 2021. And also a parking lot.

We had a new parking lot that was put in. There you can kinda see it off of Hoover. That's again, game day Saturday. We have grass fields that are adjacent to the turf fields. But again, this the sake of that is to give you a visual and, again, real use of how that facility and that's just a Saturday snapshot.

So general description, again, have two light lit full size synthetic turf fields. We have smaller grass fields for the little guys, the U8s and the 10s. And again, two large parking lots that support the existing facilities. And the thing to note is that South Lot, and I know it came up at the last council meeting with Bridge Church, we have a partnership with them, and that's been fantastic, great to work with. Supports a variety of field sports activities.

As you might suspect based on the video, soccer, but lacrosse is a biggie. So we also have permanently stitched lines. That's the beauty of turf for lacrosse. What we're proposing for 2026 is construction, rolling on it if approved. And we are looking at 2027.

So next year, around this time, we will be talking about operationally incorporating into the operating budget. But we're going to touch on that in this presentation as well. What we want to accomplish with this is there's three big main elements, and that's the restrooms. Right now, we're totally dependent on portable toilets. It's a it's a landfill site, so it does have some special considerations. But the number one thing we hear about is regular restroom facilities. This will do it. Number two is concessions. We don't have concessions, and we have a captive audience, and that's a revenue stream that we really want to capture. We're missing out on that.

And then number three, the growing need for rental spaces. We incorporated 80 capacity community room as part of this building. So the beauty of that is in per per se off season, you have something that you can rent out to the public, and it gives us gives us lots of versatility. Current users, currently, we have 15 different organizations that use the fields over there. A wide variety from club soccer, high school soccer, camps, lacrosse, of course.

It's and growing, and you'll see that in some stats that we have for you. But most importantly to us, it's home to our program. We have a large soccer program that we do, the WPRO soccer, and and that's existing. Just to give you idea what the soccer groups or our program, we have approximately 1,700 kids, and that's equates to about a 140 teams. And we have two seasons, fall and spring, but there's activity going on year round.

And then I mentioned at game day. Game day is Saturday. We're there eight until about five, and conservatively, we look at about 2,600 people that make their way in and out of the park because of course, with every player, there comes usually one, two, three, four spectators with that. And there's your captive audience with that. Justification revenue, just a snapshot currently, what we're projecting for '25 for just the complex revenue at Mineola is little over $220,000 Quick breakout with that, the programming is about $136,000 of that and then rental revenue, which is growing and growing, it's doubled in the last two years to $84,000 So as you might suspect, the addition of rentable space, concessions, these are two new revenue streams that'll be critical for the building to be successful because our goal is to make it self supporting.

That adheres to FNP initiatives. And then another piece is that the the the whole idea of adding to the corridor, to the sunset corridor, that, this is an important piece that we talked about back in 2022 when we are here about the ARPA funding and, getting the field number two in. And, we had a study done that concurred that, yes, sports is a catalyst to redevelopment and revitalization. So please keep that in mind. I know we have Jennifer here tonight that could speak on it as well, but we won't put her on the spot yet.

The customer feedback, top improvements, restrooms. That's what we hear from our users. Proper restrooms are totally dependent on Porta Johns or portable toilets. Close number two, again, is the food and beverage. Not only is that something that people want, but it's also key to revenue stream. Then number three is another rentable space. And again, the beauty of that, it's not predicated on any particular season. It can be year round and and December. If you want a Christmas party, you can rent it over there. It'd be fantastic.

So with that, I got to introduce these two fine gentlemen. We've got to the right, Mark Thompson. He's our recently promoted recreation services manager and he's been with us for a nice number of years. Does a fantastic job for us. Greg Wilcox, he's our facilities coordinator. He knows this stuff in his sleep. Eats, drinks, sleeps, facilities. Got to have someone like that. And Greg is going to walk us through some statistical numbers for you. Take it away, Greg.

All right. Thank you, Ron. So these next three slides will kind of just highlight the overall growth of our rentals, and it will kind of break it down on total facility rentals, building rentals, and then we'll speak on Mindyola specifically. So the first one here is an overall snapshot of all of our rentable facilities in our park system, including building, park shelters, and then athletic courts and fields. So this dates back to 2018.

We had just over 3,000 annual rentals. You can see today, we're projecting just shy of 6,500 rentals. So considerable growth. It also does show a slight plateau though as we are starting to run out of options and rentable spaces for groups that are interested. Since we're proposing a building at Mendeola, this breaks down the specific building rental stats.

So this includes the rooms at the Shutesy Recreation Center, the Eby Shirts Building, the Rotary, and the Buckner Community Room only. You can see the trends are pretty similar. Dating back to 2018, we were just shy of 300 annual rentals. We should finish this year with over six thirty rentals with a net revenue of $132,000 These rentals range from everything from weddings to baby showers, birthday parties, picnics, you name it. So try to have something for everybody.

And then lastly, we speak on Mendeola itself since that's the proposed site. The green line is speaking to the revenue of the strictly turf fields we're talking here, so the two turf fields, And then the orange line is speaking to the total annual rentals. You can probably tell when the second field was put in there in 2024, you can see the significant spike in revenue and rentals. For the most part in this fall here, the space that's rentable is pretty much sold out that should continue next spring as well. So we're projecting $84,000 in revenue with just shy of 300,000 annual rentals. And with that, I'll turn it over to Mark.

All right. Thank you, Greg. So this next slide is a snapshot of our operating budget. And what we really want to point out here is this is a self supporting special revenue fund. Any facility improvements, any capital projects that this facility would need, we are hoping to pay with fund balance for the building. So to highlight the expenses that you're seeing in front of you, the wages for seasonal and temporary help are going to be our concessionaires and then also our park attendants. So they'll serve both roles in that capacity. So one person doing dual roles. With our operating supplies and expenses, we have $26,000 allocated towards concession supplies and the purchase of alcohol. The $3,000 for other supplies is going to be our consumables in the building, so cleaning products, paper towels, toilet paper, things of that nature.

With the utilities of the building, we based the $7,500 budget based on other comparable shelters that we have within our facility. And the professional services relates to our professional cleaning contract that we have with Janikin. We would be looking to contract this building out due to the high capacity of the high usage of the building and just the higher level of clean that we get going with that contracted service. We do have a capital outlay of $0 in here for expenses. As again, we do want to highlight that if we do need to come back to the trough, so to speak, for capital improvements in the building, we would want to pay for that with fund balance.

So with our projected revenue, these are very conservative numbers based on comparable facilities within our park system. And the concession sales, we're really taking a look at WRO and Saratoga on how those are performing and correlating those sales over to Mindyola. And then our alcohol sales are comparable on this one is Saratoga. With our building rentals, we do have these split out into peak season and off season. We do anticipate higher usage for renters of the building during our peak season.

And then in the off season, one thing that we definitely wanted to highlight is we're looking to locate one of recreation programs to this building. An example of that would be with the Buckner Community Room, the nine months that the pool is not in operation, we house our Taekwondo program in there, our adult enrichment programs in there and also our Holiday Happening program. So the facility is used quite bit in the nine months that it's not in operation, so to speak. So the bottom line is we're projecting a net revenue of around $61,000 And the idea here is over the life cycle of the main mechanicals of the building, call it fifteen to twenty years, we're going to be able to bank what we're borrowing. And with that, I'm going to kick it back to Ron.

All right. Thank you, Mark. Here is the big three, how we're going to pay for it. And take note to use the park impact fees. This is a perfect project for it. It's a community asset used by, I can say, thousands of people and perfect perfect application for impact fees. That's about 42% of the overall cost. Also note, private donations will be actively and we always we always are. We're always looking for sponsors of all shapes and sizes. We're going to take this on, and we're pushing about 10% of the total project would be through private donations, sponsorships.

And then last but not least, certainly is the level of the tenure GO borrow, 47.7%. And that between those three, we would our overall cost estimate, project budget, dollars 2,352,575. And this shot gives you an idea. We're currently looking at what's the best location for this building. Again, take note, it is a landfill site, So that does have some limitations, that are unique, but not insurmountable.

And, we'll be working with city engineering very closely, to identify the best spot that's gonna be the most feasible to get utilities because it's all about getting utilities to this building. And we do have two pockets of opportunity that we think are the most feasible at this time, but, again, much more to come with the project as far as being approved. We can move forward then with the more detailed planning. And so again, keep with that visual, keep in mind field space and growth of additional fields down the road for the site. And then last but not least is, again, this is very much so a conceptual floor plan.

It's not cast in stone, but it gives you us all really a a great idea of how this building can be used and function. And, again, fairly simplistic. It's super loaded with restroom facilities. That's the number one objective. But we have a restroom facility that's gonna generate revenue for us and pay the bills, and that's what's unique. Concessions, we learned a lot. We we have a lot of experience with concessions in various facilities. Buckner Pool is a great example of taking concession space to another level. So that's worked out really well. And it's also not only for outdoor concession where you can come up to the, you know, the window essentially, but also indoor.

You know, you'll have access. So if you rent this building, you would have a option to also rent the kitchen space, and that's given added value. So that would be built into the plan. Featured right smack dab in the middle is the indoor community room, but also the hash marks, I would call it to the north, that's actually garage doors. So what's very much in vogue and makes a lot of sense is the ability to open up spaces.

So they're popping up, no pun intended, I guess, with the garage door space. So if you wanted to take advantage of a beautiful night without mosquitoes, you could lift up those garage doors. So now you can extend the outdoors into the indoor and vice versa. So people that wanna get out of the elements or spend time in the shade, then that would be open during, you know, like a game day Saturday, etcetera. But again, that primarily be rentable space, as Mark indicated, for programming and or, you know, rentals.

And, yes, oh, the area that you see that looks like hashtags, but that's really picnic tables. We have considerable amount of outdoor space that's covered on our overhang area, and that has a lot of value. So when you're eating or whatever or waiting for the next game, a lot of a lot of folks have multiple kids playing at the same time. This is a great spot where they can, you know, make that headquarters. And so we really feel and again, this is just the first concept at it.

You know, we'll keep refining it. We'll have public information, meetings attached to the the process. They get it really fine tuned to be as good of facility as possible. But you can kind of see the main components and we're we're investing the money into it. And the bottom line is we want to be a self supporting facility, really a template for moving forward with future facilities, wherever that may take us. With that, we're here to take any questions. Alderman Lemke. Alderman Lemke. There you go. Sorry, that's all right.

I know that we just met for half an hour in most of my questions and answers, but in my district, the UW of Waukesha, I'll always call it UWW because that's where I went, but UW Milwaukee for they're closed now. And in the last twenty years while I've lived in my house, there have been kids playing soccer just about every square foot on the weekends. Where did those soccer kids go now that they're closed? In other words, this whole season, it's been closed. There hasn't been any kids over there. And maybe you can answer that question for me.

Yes. Actually, that's a great question, and we can definitely answer it. But I'll leave that up to Greg. I could answer, but he'll answer much he'll answer it perfectly.

Yeah. So you can find all those kids at Lowell Park now and then Mendiola. So currently, Monday through Thursday, they are playing at Mendiola after our program. So this is all new rental revenue that we have not previously had. Traditionally, we've had our, as Ron alluded to, our soccer program and then sprinkling of rentals afterwards, but now it's consistent. That's why I mentioned it's it's sold out. So they're they're practicing from about 05:30 until 09:30 at Mendiola every night and then pretty much all day on Sunday as well. There are so many teams that you alluded to. They are also utilizing Lowell Park again Monday through Thursday for practices.

You're welcome. Aldeperson Helvinslavin.

I have four questions but I think they're relatively easy. What is the current revenue versus operating cost before we do any sort of improvements? So obviously we have the rental revenue which I did see. But what is that versus what our operating cost is currently?

We all could answer it in different ways.

So our operating costs right now are very nominal where it's just staff costs of a park attendant that's out there. So really it's an hourly rate and our park attendants make anywhere from 17 to 21. So it's staff time that would be out there. And one of the advantages of if we built a facility out there is we're already paying that staff member out there where now they can serve slushies and hotdogs and pretzels in addition to doing that park attendant duties out there.

Okay. So then the follow-up to that would be, obviously there's going to be some things that we're already paying for, like you said. What is the difference that you anticipate initially? Because I know you said the goal was for it to be self sustaining, but it's probably not going to be self sustaining immediately. So I guess what do you anticipate the operating cost versus revenue to be initially? And then when do you expect it to end up being self sustaining?

So the at a glance budget that we displayed for you guys is what we're anticipating for year one. So we do anticipate the facility being self sustaining in year one, and that's based off from our three revenue streams of concession rentals, alcohol sales and then well, then our program fees in addition to outside renters. So arming us with the ability to go after multiple revenue streams is really the idea here where we can turn this into a facility that does make revenue three sixty five days out of the year opposed to the four months that we're playing soccer.

Got it. And then what is the like the operating cost difference specifically related to setting up the portable toilets and getting the portable toilets and whatnot versus maintaining actual bathrooms?

Yeah. The You got numbers on that too.

I was like I bet you do.

So for the last couple of years we've been spending between 8,000 and $10,000 on portable toilets at Mindiola. So that would be an 8,000 to $10,000 cost savings that we're not investing into the rental of those, which again, with the facility being self supporting, it's truly $10,000 that we're pocketing.

Wonderful. And then my last question is on that kind of second to last page when you're talking about the potential project location. I do notice that the option B seems to hang over into that grass field a little bit. Would that have an impact on rental revenue if that was the option that you went with? Or would that grass field be moved? How would that play out?

Yeah. Good question. So those are those are what we call U-eight soccer fields. So they're very small. They look big in this aerial. So those traditionally are not rented because they are so small. So we utilize those for our u soccer program. In saying that, they move quite often as we try to save the the grass. The kids kind of all located in the same spot in soccer so that that grass dies quickly. So we're used to moving those around to to save the turf. So there's plenty of other options to move those for our programs for sure.

Thanks. I'm not really a sports person. That's that's helpful. Thank you.

You're welcome. Alder Alderson Altsen.

What's a WRO?

Activity wise, that's primarily baseball. We also do have a athletic field multipurpose. We've had everything from football practice to cricket to, some soccer. But basically acronym?

Yeah. It's it's an acronym for the name of the facility.

Oh, what what is it? Yeah.

William Oliver Sports Complex. It's named after a person.

Oh, gotcha. Thank you. Are are these here the garage doors?

Correct.

And so these bookcases are picnic tables?

Bookcases. It went well, it's better than Hashmark Okay. That I used.

But

I I like the idea that you can open it up like that. Are we contemplating any additional turf fields? Not, I know, not for 2026, but are we contemplating that?

Well, it yeah. And we're in the process of refining a master plan for the overall site because we own properties North Of Hoover as well. But it it's very much predicated on doing things in stages, funding. But the goal is in time to have a full fledged, you know, complex. And with that, yep, there is additional costs, but revenues also are associated with that. So athletic facilities is is definitely big business and and definitely revenue generators that can help support other programs that can't.

Right. And as when we designed this proposed structure, shelter and concession structure, did we contemplate that additional number of people?

Yes. No. Really, the park is divided into two halves. So this is the south half that we're developing first, and this building would accommodate future growth. So we did look at that when we're looking at the restrooms and the number of, and it'll fit very nicely. You'll get a sense of that on-site, I mean, the aerials, everything looks so big, really on-site, you know, things are seeing closer for sure.

Yeah. Well, I happen to drive over there because we were dealing with the Bridge Church expansion, so that caused me to be in that area. And I know it's wonderful that they're willing to share their parking lot. You mentioned a facility study that's gonna what did you call it?

Well, a master plan for

the Correct.

Do you have any estimated completion date of that?

It will be probably by the end of this year.

Okay.

It's well, it's it's a project that got started, and then it was held up during COVID, and then the facilities were reevaluated. The focus has been on this develop one end of the park first, and the South end is the most feasible because that's that's what we had been using. Sure. The North end is less developed.

Okay. And when that's done, will that be presented somehow?

Absolutely.

Okay. And then just just for clarifying, I wanna

make That's that's one I know Tony's dying to say something.

I'm not dying to say anything. Just I just would think that it might be helpful if Ron gave a little bit of historical background because I know that this has been a project that's been in the works for almost ten years plus now.

Well, I've been I think I've been around for most of that, so I don't know. If you want to, you can.

Yep. Well, I I will. Yes. Yeah. As Tony indicated, the roots of Mineola Park, we have a landfill site, teleport back to, like, 02/2023. This visualize a landfill that was masqueraded, capped, and and people are trying to determine how best to use the site. And what was determined is the greatest and best use is for recreational purposes.

I agree.

And but with that comes special considerations when you're building on the landfill. Our first real use of it were grass fields. We opened it up and dedicated it on 2008. Yeah. Roughly 2008.

And there we had five grass fields, very modest program, zero rentals, and, you know, we kept going, plugging away with it, work with the funding cycles to get done what we could. And then the opportunities came. The turf fields were a game changer, really. And, you can play no matter what. If you wanna play in the bitter cold, I guess you could.

Rain through some of those games.

Yeah. Rain, what they tell us and what we kinda experience is it can handle, like, 12 inches per hour, which let's hope we don't get that. But, yeah, the field's held out wonderfully through this latest storm event. Framework is in the same deal with baseball. So great investment. It's upfront cost. No doubt about it. But the payback is in playability and and user appreciation. They keep coming back and then more.

Okay. And my last item is just for transparency to the public. When you call this field self sustaining, you're talking about except for paying for the building. Like this, you're not this this like new line item on the budget doesn't pay back, you know, the cost of actually structure.

Well, yeah. It depends on how you wanna correct.

That's correct.

It's it's a self the operation of the building Right. Is self supporting.

I just wanna make clear to the public that the the operational aspect aspect of it is self supporting, but we're making investment in our recreational facilities by building a building that's separate from that calculation of operational self sufficiency.

Correct.

Thank you.

Mark, I guess questions for Mark. So and I also had an opportunity to meet with Park Rec staff about this project a little bit before. So I'm looking at Page seven, where you talk about the Mindyola Park Complex and roughly I guess I'll look at the rental number for 2024, roughly $47,000 And then I flip to Page eight. So is that $47,000 or even the projected $84,000 for 2025, is that in any of the projected revenue on Page eight?

Well, yes, that'd be a no. Mean, it's the the on page eight is new revenues. So that what we showed on the on that is actual field rentals.

Okay. And that's what I I just I I I that's what I thought, but I just wanted to clarify because I don't wanna assume anything.

So it's that's this is what we're talking is new revenue streams.

So what we're saying is that so, basically, page eight is pretty much tied to the proposed building rather than rentals for the fields. That's the rental the rentals for the field, that revenue is captured on page seven. The rent the the projected revenue and expense associated with the building if it's built is captured on page eight.

Correct. Correct.

Okay. Alright. I just wanted to clarify that for myself and for maybe members of the committee that might be asking, like considering the same thing. And then I guess, Alderperson Molson made a very good point that the projected net revenue of right around $61,000 that's going to support the operating expense of the building. And ideally to your point, gentlemen, bank some cash for future improvements or upkeep to the building, but it's not going to cover any of the debt service.

That's the investment that Beth alluded to that would be part, you know, the again, if it's approved would be roughly the about 47% of the funding sources, just regular GO debt. But the fact that we have a space that is projected to support itself and not only support itself in year one, but build fund balance and potentially support itself when air conditioners need to be replaced because that's what we always see, right? It's HVAC systems and things like that. So it is nice to see that as well. I'll bring it back to the committee if there's any other questions on Mindiola or any other thoughts on Mindiola at this point. Alderman Lemke, the floor is yours.

A few weeks ago when I saw the park and rec part of the CIP, I was extremely disappointed. And a few of my residents have come out and said they're disappointed too because they saw the shift of Meadowview Park going again a couple more years. I am encouraged, by the large amount and use of the impact fees that came out of our neighborhood to be used for Mendeola, and I'm assured that there are a lot more impact fees and for the public. New home construction pays about $2,300 in park impact fees approximately. So there's a lot of new development that is going to be occurring in my district and has occurred.

I think this is a good use of park impact fees because it affects the whole city. And I have been assured at least as much as can be controlled that the Mindy that the Meadowview will be developed a couple years down the line projected '29. So I I think with with the new kids in my district that now don't have a place to go because UW Waukesha was closed and they're now over at Mindyola and Lowell, I'm gonna be a backer of putting the Mindyola Park project ahead of the Meadow View. So I think it's a good proposal and only half of it is coming from taxes, the other half is coming from the impact fees. So it's not as big of a hit to our budget.

So I'm in favor of the adjustment now that I've had a couple of weeks to digest it. Thank you.

I'll I'll add on. Mean, thing for me is just making sure that we have dollars in the future to maintain what we already have built. Because that's that's where we, you know, building stuff is easy, maintaining it is hard. And that's what chews up the operating budget. What why I'm why I'm supportive of this is the work that that you guys did around building a fund balance around this building.

I also know that there's an awful lot of kids that play soccer there, and I know a lot of my constituents are probably there on Saturday playing soccer as well. I will say that you guys have kinda probably created a monster because I'm gonna ask for page eight on Shutesy, EB shirts, rotary, and Buckner. Not tonight, but guys, just be careful because I am gonna ask for that because I think there there's some value in not only the finance committee seeing this, the council, the public seeing that there is there is income and revenue that's derived off these community spaces, and there's value in doing it. I was not a fan of the community room at Buckner. Made that very clear.

However, you know, some of this data and some of the conversations that we have has just showed me that, yeah, there that is driving revenue into the city, and it's helping offset the cost of the pool, not necessarily the debt service like we've talked about, but the ongoing operating. So I'm inclined to support this. I have one park in my district, and it's gonna need some help in the future. So I'd ask you guys to keep that in mind. So I'm gonna need a stoplight at some point in the future at Grand View Park. I'd like just to put that out there. But I'm inclined I'm inclined to support it as we go forward with our discussion. So I know there's probably some other questions on some park projects, so I want to bring it back to the committee. Is there any other questions on Mindeola before we shift and ask other questions? All right.

Gentlemen, if it's okay. Ron, we have you. I was I would like to talk a little bit about the pedestrian bridges and the RACE grant. And if you can maybe if someone can give us a little bit of an overview of that. Ron, that's not you, appreciate that. But I think it's part of this and I'd like just to have a little bit of conversation around that.

Yes. I think if we can have the city engineer, Brandon Schwann, come up, provide a little context in terms of the timeline, what's included in the grant, what the grant's for.

Ron, thank you.

That would be, I think, probably a good idea. And we can certainly provide additional, I think, context too from what led up to this. I think there was rerouting in 2021 of a trail, and there were some other grant applications that were submitted prior to getting the RAISE grant as well. So I'll turn it over to Brandon.

Thank you, Tony. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Brandon Chelan. I'm the city engineer for the Department of Public Works. I'll try and have a brief overview. Obviously we've got a lot of people in the audience tonight, but the RAISE grant application, obviously it is under PRF's budgets but this was a multi departmental coordinated effort to apply for this grant between public work staff, PRF staff as well as community development.

Just a little history back and forth. We had previously applied for other grant programs like WSDOT's TAP program for this bridge, one of these two pedestrian bridges as well. We were unsuccessful on those previous grant applications. So what this project is, just in summary, is the design and the study of two pedestrian structures over the bypass. One on the East Bypass where the New Berlin Trail crosses the bypass and then on the very southern part of the bypass by Fox River Parkway.

Obviously major trail crossings, we do have issues with a lot of vehicular traffic plus trying to cross those roadways is extremely difficult. So what we did as a staff in 2023 when we had the bipartisan infrastructure law and a lot of federal grant money was being thrown around in opportunities, the former city administrator gave us direction to try and go after these grant funds in 2023. That was the first time that we applied for the RAISE grant, for a planning grant, for the design and conceptualization of these two pedestrian structures. In that 2023 grant program, we ended up being finalist. The application got to the Secretary of Transportation's desk, we ultimately weren't selected, but we were very very close.

We met with US DOT, we got some feedback on our application, they gave us some pointers on where we could make some improvements, so we resubmitted and made improvements to our application for the 2024 RAISE grant. Fortunately after that second round of reviews we did get selected and awarded to move forward with the grant. So where we're at now is this is an eightytwenty federal to local cost share grant for the planning, preliminary design and final design of both of these bridge structures, pedestrian bridge structures. And that's where we're at today and that's what the CIP budget page is for the local share of the grant program. Right now we have been working with US DOT to start the grants agreement process and that's where we're at working with them.

Our draft grant agreement before we worked Obviously CIP comes first but we're getting things in line too if we do move forward with this and it is approved at the CIP level that we can execute that grant agreement and move forward as kind of our next step. So I know that wasn't super brief, but that kind of gives the history and we'll gladly answer any questions.

So I'm just so for those following along at home, I'm on page 55 of the book and I think it's 50, maybe 57 of the attachment. So Brandon, so these are going I guess, I just wanna make sure that everyone understands what we're talking about. So these are actually gonna be bridges over the bypass, pedestrian bridges over the bypass. One over by like Lincoln, Pearl Street, then where's the other one?

Near Fox River Parkway where the trail goes underneath the bridge on the South Bypass right now that is very low clearance that ends up getting flooded out. Over by

Over by the new QuickTrip and Fire Station three?

Similar. And generally, that location, yes.

Okay. So the the federal government is willing to help us with the construction of this, but the ongoing maintenance is going to be on the city to maintain these two structures.

So this grant is just the planning and design. So it is not the construction of the structures. It is just the planning and the design. If we were to, the concept would be as part of that grant program is that we would do everything like the benefit to cost analysis, all of the items that would be required to submit for a construction raise grant, we would look to submit to the federal government for that in the future. Now that does put us in a really good position that if we do the planning under raise grant funds, historically speaking the construction side when those projects reapply for the construction side, they have a pretty good opportunity because of the previous investment at the federal level already being put in.

Now I can't guarantee that, obviously that's just going on in his history and I guess just for any clarification, they did change the name of the RAISE program, it is now called BUILD. So if people are hearing that in the public realm, is now the build. I think previously under the Trump administration, it was called tiger and then it changed to raise under the Biden administration and now it's called build. So if you're keeping track at home, that's kinda where we're at.

So what's proposed then is roughly the city share would be right around $280,000 for just the design. And there's again, there's no guarantee that if we do this work, we're gonna get the money for the construction.

There is no guarantee. Correct.

And then if we build it, we're gonna be responsible the city is gonna be responsible for maintaining these structures. That is correct. I guess the last question I have, and I probably, I I'm pretty sure I know the answer, but who who's clamoring for this? I mean, I don't I'm I ride my bike in the basement, so I'm not a big bike rider. But I'm just I mean, again, this isn't in my district, I know Alderman Alderman Cuisine is here, but I'm just I mean, who's clamoring for this?

Because it seems for me that if we have a way if you have a if you can go underneath the bridge, granted it's not the best. And then I think on the other side of town, there's a there's a controlled intersection at Pearl Street that you can easily, in some respects, maybe not easily, but ride your bike up to Pearl Street, cross the bypass, and then ride back down. I'm just I'm struggling with this in terms of not only the the cost to do it, the fact that we could expend money and not get the funds to build it, and then, again, just the ongoing cost. Because I spent a lot of time on board of public works and I know how much bridges are to maintain. They're not cheap. I guess there's a question in there somewhere. I'm just I'm just kinda curious on what, you know, what staff's response is to to that.

Yep. Absolutely. So handle a couple of those questions. As far as with the raised grant submittal we did get letters of support from entities surrounding government. We did have a letter of support from WSDOT. Obviously we're crossing one of their roadways. They gave us a letter of support. Waukesha County also supported the study or the installation of the pedestrian bridges.

Did Waukesha County offer any money?

At this time, no. But obviously we can always Didn't mean to interrupt. Funds are tight elsewhere. They hadn't committed anything at this point. Their sewer pack also provided a letter of support that we submitted with our application.

New Berlin provided a letter of support that we submitted and then I believe the Wisconsin Bike Federation also provided a letter of support. So between the biking community, the local municipalities, us, the county, New Berlin, there was a lot of support from surrounding communities for looking at what our options are from a structure standpoint because if you cross the bypass on the New Berlin Trail, you can't right now because DOT has a close with their improvement projects, but it is very very difficult and it is not a safe crossing as it sits today.

But improvements could be made to bring the trail up to Pearl Street and across to Pearl Street?

The complexity of that is there's a section of there in there that's village town of Waukesha that will not have a sidewalk or a path connection down to Pearl Street from the New Berlin Trail. Trail. That's the linchpin in where we can not have connectivity down to Pearl Street.

Okay. Other questions for staff on I know I brought up the raise grant, I'll bring Alderman Lemke?

When I first looked at this, I thought, well, I'm supportive of the bridges. I thought the 1.396 was to build them. I guess I'm way out of the loop. $1,396,000 for a study. Oh, man. I should have been an engineer. But do you have a ballpark figure? I know it's ballpark. Will these structures cost $10,000,000, $20,000,000? And even on an 8020, if we get a grant, if you're looking at a $20,000,000 for two bridges, cities, part of it is 4 to 5,000,000.

We could build an awful lot of Mindiola Bathrooms? Bathrooms for that. So that's just an idea of Yep. A cost.

Yeah. In order to provide what the design cost was we did have to estimate the construction cost and within our application we included an anticipated construction cost of just shy of 19,000,000 for both structures combined. So two structures, 19,000,000, it's roughly 8.5 per structure is what we anticipated based on similar pedestrian bridges over that size of highway.

Alderman Cousin, we'll come back to Rick.

Thank you. Our city has some really awesome manufacturing and neighboring cities use our bypass. It's also county and state bypass. We built some really tall things in the city of Waukesha that use this bypass. Also, there's a lot of agricultural things. So I think the height we're looking at here most is thirteen six. It would have to be higher than 13.6. Otherwise, this bridge will get hit a lot. Even at 14.2, it will get hit. That's one. I look at this area a lot. It used to be near my district, but do some map drawing. It is not particularly near my district a lot. As a truck driver through the city of Waukesha, I also look at the the traffic across there. It's true.

No one stops. But what they're doing right now because it's all tore up, they are going to Pearl Street right now. They're actually carrying their bikes across, and they are actually using Pearl Street right now. I mean, the rocks are are are that big. So I'm talking about the one on the Northeast side of town. The the underlayment underneath where the Fox River is, my logic is going to be applied for there, I'm just talking about the more wider use. But I think we really underestimate how many times this bridge will get hit and the height of it that's going to add the cost to it. So I'm not in favor of it, but those are my comments. I have lots more other comments, but talk to me later.

Just a quick clarification, the WSDOT requirements for the height of a pedestrian structure is actually higher than a roadway structure and I'm just going off my memory here, don't have it in front of me, I believe the minimum clearance on a pedestrian structure is 17 foot nine inches. So that should give plenty of space for any large loads but they they do heavily weight the pedestrian bridges and require a higher height clearance.

Thank you for that clarification but you underestimate the power of farmers and truckers.

I'm gonna Alderson Wiggerson.

I wanna go back to what Alderman Piper was talking about about where this originated from. Like, who made the initial complaint that made us decide that this that this was an idea? Because this my trail is in my district. So and what my Alderman Christine is saying, it's true. I witnessed accidents with those trucks and, you know, right now that whole stretch is a mess over there anyway.

So I do foresee that it's going to be quite a financial burden on repair because I do see that being a problem. But I'm really just curious who started it originally, like where it where this all came from and why we did the grant to begin with. I think it's great we have all the support, but somebody had to make a complaint.

Yeah, I think if PRF wants to join in too and if they've received complaints from the bike groups, I'm not an expert in that realm, but I think there is just a general public perception of we did do the New Berlin Trail connector in that location, we did invest funds to improve the New Berlin Trail through the city's portion but we do now direct bicyclists into a not a very safe crossing. Right. So that's, you know, some people turn around, some people don't even try and attempt to cross the bypass and they go a different way. If you had that connectivity so you could continue to go east down the New Berlin Trail, connect up with the trails to the east, that's an inner trail connectivity and I think that's where we saw those letter of support because we could connect to other elements. You could have a trail through the city that gets you to the Glacial Drumlin Trail heading to the West, you could go to the East and eventually get to the Oakleaf Trail.

So that connectivity point is there's a barrier there. And what that barrier is is we hit a lot of things that the RAISE grant and the criteria that we were being scored against. We checked a lot of boxes with this project because there was a barrier there, there was connectivity, there was multimodal options. So there were a lot of items in that program that we were checking the box of. And like I said, when we originally submitted for for the the grant application, it was at the direction of the previous city administrator and we kept that going because we were so close to being awarded the grant that we resubmitted.

The other thing

I was done.

Sorry if I could. Yeah. The The other thing I just wanted to add is even predating the raise grants back in 2022, the council did approve a resolution supporting a 20% cost share for bike and pedestrian bridge structure construction over Fox River Trail. So it seems that at that time there was some amount of support for some type of pedestrian bridge over the bypass. And I think that was carried through on a staff level.

Okay. Thank you for that clarification.

Other So so kind of from a policy and procedure standpoint, what we'll do is if there is amendments on anything as it relates CIP, we're going to get to that towards the end of the meeting. So I'll just bring it back to the committee. Any other questions for Brandon or staff as it relates to the RAISE grant?

Mike? You, Helmut Piper. I'll make it quick. Did we ever do a study of bicycle traffic? Could that even be done or that would be probably in part of the project we're talking about to investigate the scope of it. The other thing, my other comment is what works really well stopping traffic is in front of that county courthouse. No one goes past those flashy lights, but that's another option.

I believe there was some bike counts. I don't have that for certain in front of me, but I I do believe that we do have counts at that crossing.

The other thing I just wanted to add to to that is there is a bike pad plan that the city has. And I believe in the strategic plan, there is an objective to update that plan. So it is something that the council identified as an item that should be a priority.

Very good. I see Alderman Manion has joined us. Dan, if you have any questions just raise your hand let me know. Any other anything else as relates to the raise grant? And I guess I'll ask the bigger question. Is there any other questions as it relates to Park Rec and Forestry in terms of CIP, Fleet? Any other questions from the committee? Alright. Joe? Brandon, thank you.

Alright. I'll just need my presentation to be brought back up please. Patricia, thank you. Alright. The next department that we have up is library.

As you can see here, there's a couple of different projects that are highlighted in their plan for 2026. They have an outdoor library sign replacement, a public bathroom remodel, some security cameras and then the last thing that's noted on here are their general computer upgrades and replacements. That's been a pretty standard budget item as far as library has been concerned. But that's the vast majority of what's listed in their twenty twenty six projects. And I believe Bruce is in the audience if you do have any questions.

So I do. Bruce and I know I sent you an email about this. I'm struggling with the the lot with the light with the outdoor sign. And I I don't mean to be flippant, but I I felt like a lot of folks probably know where the library is. So I would just love some additional commentary on the Sure. On the outdoor sign.

Well, do you know where the current sign is?

Up by the building? Nope. On the building? No. It's a trick question, Bruce.

Yeah. There's a sign that must be 40 years old by on the Carroll Street entrance, which no one uses anymore. It's actually mostly covered by a tree right now. You know where the library is. We have people every day that don't know where the library is. They find it after a while. Google leads people around to the other side because of the address. So we were looking for a way to have a little bit more public presence on the street. We think it'll help people find the building. I think people who live in Waukesha and have lived here for a long time, they do know, and that that's true.

But there are a lot of people who really don't, and we have people come from all over to the library. So we think it's a valuable addition. I'd say our sign, the old green sign that we have is is far below what you see at any of the library now.

Bruce, thank you. Yep. Alderperson Helvinslavin, then alderperson Molson.

Yeah. I'm gonna I'm gonna back up Bruce on this one. As somebody who lives literally across the street from the library, I don't know how many times I've had to direct people to the correct place. People who have had to walk all the way around Cutler Park, etc. It's just I'm coming back from the farmers market and there's an event and I will say I know we're not talking about the operating budgets we haven't gotten into some of the statistics yet but I've seen them as somebody who's on the library board in terms of the amount of people that are coming for programs at the library and those people are often not people who are necessarily local that are utilizing our facilities and don't necessarily know where to park or how to get into the library is a little confusing. So I will say I'm I'm very supportive of this sign.

Alderperson Molson.

I concur with Alicia. My former employer is roughly across the street from the library, and we got people coming and asking me where the library is. And I walked many people over, and and from the from the Cutler Park side, there isn't an obvious sign about what's the library. That sign is on the other side. But if you're on Wisconsin Avenue, it's it can be difficult. And so I've I've directed many people myself to try and find the find the library. So I agree with Felicia.

I I appreciate the conversation. Conversation. Other since we have Bruce, is there other questions for Bruce on the library from the committee?

Nope. Fabulous job on the library.

Alright. Very good. Alright. Bruce, thank you.

Joe?

All right. Thank you. Moving on. IT. What's that?

Yes.

The items that we list here are the major items in IT. We have our general computer replacement program. Mr. Polfall and his team do try to keep this kind of a standard amount every year being very consistent. You know me, I probably say consistent in this presentations about 18 times. So I'm always appreciative of when we can do that. So that's a pretty standard number. And then we have some software and licensing in their CIP plan also, which is pretty standard. Any questions for Chris Pofall tonight?

So I I just real quick, I had an opportunity to to attend the ITB or the technology board meeting that Dan chairs and we went where they went through these capital projects and from my humble opinion, much consistent, very straightforward. But Chris, certainly give you an opportunity to make any comments. The floor is yours. And if you could introduce yourself, that'd be great.

Sure. Chris Pofall, IT Director. Everything in the CIP request this year is all replacement equipment. There's nothing new being added into it. The software budget was some placeholders that we needed to get into the budget in case we needed them as we were working through some quotes with some vendors. And it looks like we may not need that money. So that's it.

Thank Thank you, Chris. I know we've there's a lot of stuff in the book. Any questions for Chris? Alderperson Molson.

I know one of the projects that was talking about was moving the fiber from the former Lindholm Building over to Les Paul Middle School, which makes sense to me. Do we have other locations in the city where our fiber goes to places that are not the school district?

Yes. So we partner with the school district in a lot of different areas throughout the city. So there's a lot of our parks that have like keyless entry systems and cameras and they're usually near a school building. And so there's a point to point wireless network back to the school building. From that school building, we use school district fiber to get back to the Lindholm Building.

And then have fiber back to City Hall and that's how everything's interconnected that way. Couple of years ago, school district sold Lindholm to Carroll University. Carroll University is now either going to raise it or sell it. And so school district and city and Carroll does have some fiber in that building as well. We need to get our fiber out of that building. We had an agreement with them to keep our fiber there because it was a lot to move. And since Carol won't own it anymore or whatever they're going to do with it, we're going to move everything over to Les Paul. And so that's the city's portion of that project.

Thank you.

Other questions for Chris as it relates to IT and the CIP? Chris, thank you.

Yep. Joe?

All right. Next up our fire department for 2026 the project noted here is teleconference equipment replacement at Station 1 for $105,000 On the equipment side they plan for extrication equipment replacement for another $105,000 And then probably the most talked about items that we've had already with is their fleet. They're replacing Fire Engine 83 for just under 1,300,000.0 They have they're working on two ambulance re chassis projects that's just under $370,000 And then they are replacing their fire safety house vehicle, which was all these were kind of present at the last meeting. So that you all got to kind of touch and see. So those are the main items on their budget and I believe they're also here to answer any questions.

Joe, thank you. Any questions for the fire department from the committee as it relates to the capital budget? All right. Fire department, chief, gentlemen, thank you for coming. Joe?

All

right. Keeping it moving. The next up is our police department. The two major items here in equipment for them are the last year of the Axon contract, which was the body camera, the squad cameras and their interrogation room camera system for $266,000 They have an item for department issued handguns for $125,000 and then the annual fleet spend for their squad cars and trucks at $710,000 which you got to see an example of also last meeting.

I I know the deputy chief is here. I'm just wondering if we could talk a little bit about the department issued handguns. This has been talked about a couple of different times, but I think it'd be good to have a quick refresher for the committee on this item.

Hello again, Assistant Chief Wagner, Wakshapiti. So the department issued handguns, it's basically as long as I've been in city for twenty five years, it's it's we've currently allow for nine different handguns under our policy and of different calibers. And what we found is best practice is to have standardization with the guns, mainly for maintenance purposes, have trained armorers just like any piece of equipment. They break, things go wrong with them. And having not having it being standardized of what we carry is just not going along with best practices in our industry.

Also standardizes ammunition as well, right, Tom?

Correct. Yes. And ammunition too, there is a cost to that as well for us having to stock different calibers of ammo. So being able to adjust going to nine millimeter, which is what this proposal is, would be a significant cost savings too in terms of ammunition purchase for training.

And going way down a rabbit hole, it will also probably help with the range as well in terms of increasing the operational life of the range and the materials there by having one standard ammunition versus others.

I can't speak to that, but it sounds great.

That's my that's that's my opinion. That's my opinion. Alright. Other since we have the police department, questions for the police department from the committee on their capital budget? Alderperson Molson.

Will you refresh my memory? I thought we did this already with the guns because I thought I remembered asking about how are we gonna piss off all of our police officers by the all the ones that pick the other eight guns? So did we do this already?

So this is yeah. It's I mean, I think this is due for 2027. So you may have seen it last year as the initial proposal to do this, but we haven't pushed this up on the project list, to get done just we prioritize other projects before. So now you're just hearing about it again. Okay.

2027.

Any other questions for the police department? Tom, thank you. Joe.

All right. Thank you. All right. So moving on, we have Cemetery, first enterprise fund of the night. They can see here their major projects that are listed. They have some roof replacements with their mausoleum at 210,000. They have some major tuck pointing and caulking in the mausoleum as well for $90,000 And you saw the golf cart last two weeks ago for a replacement of $15,000 And Karen is also in the audience if you have questions.

So I think one of the questions that I had as I've been thinking about this a little bit more, Karen, and perhaps you and or John can speak to it, is I know with the golf cart, And we talked a

lot about that at Show and Tell with the

fact that it's used for watering, things like that. I guess the question that I had perhaps again is, is there another vehicle within Citi that's coming off of their fleet like a gator at like a gator in a different department that could be used for this purpose? Or is is the golf cart the highest and best solution for this? And Karen, if you could introduce yourself too, please.

Karen Richards, cemetery director. Actually our preference is golf cart for what we use it for and we're in and out of small areas, our seasonals primarily use the golf carts and we would prefer for them not to have a gator. It takes up more space and this is it's easy maneuvering. I don't know if other departments have golf carts. They may be as old as ours if they do.

Karen, thank you. Alderman Lumpke. Most

of you don't know, but I just bought a camper in the spring, and I'm in a 121 unit campsite. So I spent the whole season looking for a golf cart. So when I saw this item here, I thought I would just make my notations known. Most golf carts for persons that can carry a little bit of golf clubs and I'm thinking watering cans, I've found it can be purchased for about $10,000 new and you can get a one or two year old electric one for about 4 or 5,000. Why do we have $15,000 Are we looking for something more than a golf cart?

That's my only question.

Well, there was some discussion about possibly doing a gator type vehicle or UTV instead of the golf cart. But we did look at a new golf cart pricing was about $11 plus. And then when I spoke with John, we do have to have a bed actually put in the back. And so this is what he was estimating.

John, if you have anything certainly.

John Weinke, our Fleet Manager. So this is the description of being a golf cart is a little misleading. It's not just the typical golf cart, what you're thinking on the golf course. This is more of a utility vehicle, but it's a smaller utility vehicle because it needs to be narrow and then a tight turning rate is similar to a golf cart, but it has to have the weight carrying capacity to carry about 80 to 100 gallons of water in the back of it. That we can't do with a golf cart.

It's one of the issues she has right now where she has a legitimate golf cart that has been made into something. A golf cart only has braking on the rear axle, whereas the UTV that we will be replacing this would have braking on all four wheels for obviously safety reason and then the load carrying capacity for the water. So it's not just a golf cart. And it's not just a golf cart and steroids that everybody wants to go have fun with it. It physically has a utilitarian purpose.

Thank you. I was just looking at the picture, and it looked like a plain old golf cart to me. So I understand now that in the scheme of things, the extra $5,000 isn't gonna make a big difference. So I would suggest that, yeah, we leave it in the budget so you can get what you need. Thank you.

Great. John, thank you. Other questions from the committee for the cemetery? Karen, thank you. Joe?

All right, thank you. Getting down to it. All right, the last governmental session is our public works department. Obviously a great deal of spend historically every year and related to our infrastructure. The major projects that you see on here are somewhat we've already heard, but I'll kind of just go through them.

Minor Street projects about $4,000,000 all covering Prospect Avenue, Bidwell Avenue, Davidson Road and William Street. The resurfacing projects of $2,600,000 There's stormwater pond rehab work that's planned at Patrick Pond and Summit Woods for $1,900,000 And then at the municipal garage, they're looking to do roofing and HVAC improvements for about $1,000,000 The other major items is in their fleet. They have four five to six yard dump trucks. That's about 1,200,000 in total for all four. And then there's a wheel loader with a plow and wing that's at $380,000 most of which you might have seen at last meeting as well.

So before we move to enterprise funds, I figured we can stop here and see if you have any questions for public works.

So

I guess and Alex, Brandon, I know I emailed you a couple of quick questions. The the questions that I had were the Barstow Bridge and seeing if there was any opportunity with the recent floods to get some assistance with that. The answer is unfortunately no.

Correct. There is no no money available because of the flooding to fix the surface decking of the bridge.

And then my other question was maybe a little bit of background on on the landfill, but Ron did that for you, Alex. So you're off you're off the hook unless members of the other members of the committee have any other questions on West Avenue Landfill. I think Ron did a good job of highlighting that. And then I think the one thing that I would maybe ask you to touch on that I know has gotten some attention over the last couple of years is just the continuing conversion on North Street and Saint Paul. So I'm wondering, gentlemen, if you can just maybe briefly just comment a little bit about that project.

We we sure can. So I'm Alex Damian, director of public works. Brandon Schwann was introduced earlier. So thank you for having us. First thing of business is we did hand out a map showing the locations of the road reconstruction projects and the road resurfacing projects for the next two years. We typically do this a little bit later in the season, but we had the map available. So I thought it'd be worthwhile for you. While not everybody knows where some of those streets are. So if you have any questions on the major or minor streets, we'd be happy to answer those. Getting to your question on the St.

Paul North Street two way conversion cover sheet. I'm trying to find it on my pages here. You want to try to turn to that one, Joe? I think it's on page 23.

Yeah. I'll try to find it here. Is it under public works or engineering?

Public works.

Okay. I'll bring it up as soon as I find it.

So it's page 23 of the book. Alright. Yep. I'm almost there.

Okay.

I know this isn't in '26, but I'm just it's garnered some conversation.

So this this project is scheduled or planned for 2027 and it is shown on the map there. So I want to point out that the primary goal for this project is actually the signal replacement and the intersection reconstruction. So that signal is basically in a level of service that we are limping it along and we need to address that as soon as as soon as possible.

That's the signal in Moreland and

Moreland, North and Saint Paul. Correct.

Bottom of the hill.

Yes. The conduits are are failed there. We can't run new wires through. So we need to address the traffic signal now. So that's why it's in 2027. So that's the main goal for this project. Obviously, the road in that condition, that intersection is not in good shape either. So that is part of it. And then resurfacing those last lengths, as you can see on there, of St. Paul and North Street.

So as part of the original two way conversion project that was scoped for potentially two different phases. The first phase is complete and in operation right now. And then the second phase of that project could be implemented with this project. And that would be to convert the section of Saint Paul from Albert, which is where that new slip lane comes in and up to the Moorland Intersection as a two way street, and then bring in the southbound traffic onto Saint Paul through that intersection. So that before that would be determined to be installed or processed or controlled that way, we'll be looking at the engineering behind it, reviewing the traffic flows, how it is handling it now, what that would maybe look like if that were to be implemented in the future.

But the first the first step is that road intersection needs to be reconstructed. And then we'll be looking at that with the plan development. If there's improvements we can get out of bringing all the traffic onto Saint Paul basically for southbound as well, we will be reviewing that.

Alex, thank you. So questions from the committee as it relates to public works. So this is fleet projects. Alderman Lemke.

I didn't see it here, and this is just a ballpark question. With all the new development that's gonna happen on University Drive between Northview and Summit, I didn't see anything on the CIP. That road's getting pretty bad shape, and it's gonna get some new properties around there. Can you in the just a not that the city spent any money, but can you just kinda put it in the developer's ear that he's gotta kinda do something with that street because it's looking pretty bad. I don't want them to tear the whole thing up, but maybe a grind and resurface, but that's for future.

Thank you. Correct. The road is in very poor condition and it is scheduled for work in 2028. And we actually have a cover sheet on there. It's under the major street op page, if you want to look at that page, but that's where that falls. And I would like to add that we have that's what I was just going say. We do have a grant that is scheduled to pay for a good portion of that. It's a $1,000,000 I believe, right?

Thank you.

1.5.

The developer can pay some too.

Alex, thank you. Other questions for public works engineering from the committee? All right, gentlemen, seeing no other questions. Thank you.

I just wanted to add one other piece. So over the years, over the past few years, the council has made millions of dollars of investments in major roads, minor roads resurfacing. And we've gotten to a point where the pavement condition index is at a fairly good rate at roughly, I believe it's 68.9. And what we're trying to do at this point is figure out what would be the annual investment needed to maintain that PCI rating. So at some point probably in the future, whether that be a separate standalone discussion or looking at the CIP, there may be some adjustments in terms of what is the amount that is dedicated to road funding that at least we're recommending at a staff level.

So I just want to make you all aware of that because with the amount of funds, but then also getting up to a better road system, we're just trying to make sure that we're maintaining that if not getting better into the future.

Great. Thanks, Tony.

We do have some very interesting data that we've already started to gather and would be happy to present on that in the near future.

Great. Gentlemen, thank you.

Alright.

Joe?

Moving moving on to the enterprise funds under public works. We have the clean water plant. Traditionally infrastructure intensive capital project area. So for the clean water plant, the major projects entail really a major portion of the Phase three upgrades at the facilities, dollars 7,000,000 is currently budgeted for that in 2026. And then our general sanitary sewer rehab, which could be replacement of certain mains, it's related to sewer lining, a number of items that run through that particular project.

Another as far as the equipment is concerned, the largest item that they noted was a narration basin piping diffuser project for 385,000 And then they had their major fleet item was the sewer jetter in Flusher, which was at the meeting, which you got a chance to see a couple of weeks ago for four hundred thousand dollars Before I move into like transit, is there any questions for Clean Water Plant?

I just

want the

one thing I'll note is that the projects are being funded by operating revenues in these cases. All right, we'll keep it moving then. The last two items that we're here to note are the transit and parking utilities. On the transit side, we have some equipment replacements. As you can see here, passenger sign replacements for $225,000 and fare and fare box replacements for $160,000 The one thing to note here is it'll be funded similarly to what Brian had mentioned for the buses that where we don't have the use of city funds being put towards these projects.

On the parking side, the two major items that we noted major projects are the South Street ramp structure upgrades and they plan to do surface lot rehab at Lot 13 for 125,000 Any questions for those two utilities? Alderperson, Alvin Slavin.

Yeah. My question is related to the South Street ramp just because I get quite a few calls regarding specifically security. And and I guess what I'm going to ask is that we just recently invested in hiring security, on-site security, and then we had a bunch of break ins basically immediately thereafter. So my concern is that with structure upgrades, I know there's also been a lot of vandalism. So I guess how effective is our new security, and what is that going to mean in terms of upgrading?

And then if there is vandalism, what that cost is going to be to to make those replacements. And Alex, I know that we've talked about the the fire extinguishers and and some other some other vandalism items that have cost the city quite a bit of money. I know $100,000 is not hugely significant, And I do think that there are significant upgrades that are needed, but I I just worry about that vandalism aspect.

Sure. I can take this one, Tony, if you want. So the job for that security guards just got posted, and I think we got our first applicant this week. So there hasn't been any additional security guards at the South Street ramp to date. Has helped us stepping up controls and things like that, but there isn't any full time security guards as we had planned.

That was just approved through HR and and that's working its way through the process. And we hope we have a good candidate here soon that we can hire. The South Street ramp structure upgrades project, so that's more like structural repairs, replacing concrete on the decks that has come delaminated and things like that. So there are still outstanding projects out there to replace the damaged items out there. And that is should be happening here momentarily. But yes, we hope that with the increased level of security on-site that we have less vandalism in both fire extinguishers and building blocks and and things like that. But the structural repairs wouldn't be something that would be vandalized, I don't think.

That's kind of what I figured. But I do appreciate the clarification because that's probably one of the things I get asked about the most, at least in my district.

I I believe it.

Any other questions for Alex or Brandon as it relates to public works or fleet? Gentlemen, thank you.

Joe? Okay. So that is is it for marching through the apartments. The the one thing I'll just wanna kinda come back to

Can I

ask a question real quick?

Oh, absolutely.

One thing I did notice in the book, and I I know Jennifer is here this evening, is that there were a handful of projects that were funded through TID 17. And I think I just wondered Jennifer if you wouldn't mind just giving us a just a quick overview of of that because it kind of popped out at me in the book. And then I know I don't think community development has a whole lot in the budget this year but also give you an opportunity to see if there's any questions from the committee as well. So thank you Jennifer.

TID 17 is our TIF district that's south of downtown. It's a quite a large district. It's pretty old as well and under the statute there's a limit on the number of years you can spend funds in a TIF district. So that district being at its age is coming to the end of its expenditure period. And we usually build into all of our TID project plans some public improvements, but we usually wait towards the end to make sure that we can afford those improvements at you know that the district was well performing and things like that.

So we're at that period now where we were able to assess that cash flow and look at what projects we have identified in the district to benefit the district as a whole and determined that we were able to fund a series of projects through that TIF district. So one of the powerful tools with TID is that's not just our tax levy but also the county and the school district as well. So they're all contributing to those public projects that we'll be doing.

Very good. Any questions for Jennifer? Aldo Burstmolson, I'm sorry.

Are we considering leaving 10/17 open the year for the low cost housing?

We haven't made that determination yet. So what happens with the life is the expenditure period will end and then there's a couple more years still of debt service. So we have a few years before we make that decision. We may also close a portion of it early. So we're just evaluating all those scenarios.

Thank you.

Any other questions for Jennifer? Jennifer, you.

Joe? Just one thing of note, we have roughly $5,000,000 of projects related to 2017 funding between 2026 and 2027 in total. So then the only other thing that I wanted to mention just kind of bringing it back to what was proposed to you. We have a CIP 2026 capital budget that is proposed for looking for your recommendation for approval of $39,887,329 and a CIP plan for 2026 to 2030 in the total of $179,471,597 And so we ask for your recommendation for that particular proposal or if you have any recommendations or other questions, we're here for that.

So before we so Joe, Tony, thank you. And I also want to thank you, your team and all the directors here tonight for a very good capital budget. And we know there's a lot of work that goes into this with the show and tell and everything else, and we skim through a lot in two hours, but that's not to, you know, undermine or minimize the amount of work that goes into 311 pages of a capital budget. So everyone, thank you on behalf of the committee. I'll bring it back to the before we take any amendments on the overall capital or overall CIP, does the committee have any other questions for directors, Tony or Joe?

Alright. Are there any amendments from the committee this evening? I will propose an amendment, and I'll make a motion to the committee to eliminate the consideration of the raise grant for the two pedestrian bridges that were presented this evening. Is there a second? We have an opportunity to talk more about this at council, but I I wanted to at least make the motion this evening. So alright. I don't see a second, so that motion will die for lack of a second. Are there any other amendments from the committee this evening? Alright. Well, it I'm very excited.

So I will make a motion to recommend to the overall common council the approval of the 2026 capital budget in the amount of $39,887,329 and the twenty twenty six to 2030 CIP in the amount of $179,471,597 as presented. Alderperson Helben Slade.

I'll second.

So we have a motion and a second to recommend the council the not only the 2026, but also the five year plan as presented. Is there any further discussion on the motion? Alright. Let's take it. We'll we'll take a vote. All those in favor of the budget as presented sign aye. Aye. Is there anyone opposed? That does pass unanimously. So the next step for this will be the common count at our next common council meeting. Again, everyone in the audience, I wanna thank you for all the good work that's gone into this, and we're excited to get capital done and move on to operating very soon. So with that, we'll move on to number six, Communications. Gentlemen?

Yes, thank you. I wanted to just kind of point out a couple of the major dates that we have related to the next few meetings. The next Finance Committee meeting is scheduled for September 30. We don't have any specific item related to the operating budget, but we do know we have a couple of items. So we do plan hosting that meeting.

So let us know if you have any issues with availability. But then even more importantly are the first meetings in the following month. The operating budget review is planned for two nights in a particular week, October 12 and wait, let me make sure I'm right. I did have it in front of me and then I lost it. I'm sorry, October 14 and October 16, that's a Tuesday and a Thursday to get through all of the department review between the whole between all of the operating funds. So that's currently on the calendar. If you have any issues with any of that, please let me know as soon as you possibly can in case we have to deal with that.

Do you have an idea when we'll have the book for operating to start looking at?

I don't want to promise it. It's due on October 10.

All right. It's due on October. It's my birthday, so what a birthday

Oh, very cool. But those are obviously very important meetings. Everyone will have the opportunity to tell their story for the operating budget.

Any other communications gentlemen?

No, I think the only other thing worth mentioning is that the next meeting we'll bring back the purchasing policy and then we'll also have the disposition of surplus policy as well to review.

Very good. Any referrals from the committee? Any objections to adjourning? Seeing none, very good meeting everyone. We are adjourned. Thank you, folks.

Thank you.