Village Board - Regular Meeting

Why not? Why not? Good.

20 minutes on a gravel road.

I'm great.

Yeah, yeah. I am no longer wasting any time.

That's right. We are doing training. Everybody, every turn.

But the children want to know. You don't miss a beat.

All right, good evening. We'll get the meeting started for the LG Walkers. We'll go to our meeting today, August 27th, 2026.

Here.

Here. Here. Here.

All right. Confirming the agenda was posted properly across the village, a website and news media on or before 630 and the 26th? Correct. All right. Citizen comments. Anyone like to speak? Come up to the microphone one at a time. Give us your name and address, please, and you can give us your comments afterwards. Yes, sir. Yeah.

Craig Winstall, I live at W220S1965S Springdale Road, and I'm here tonight on a complaint about the shoulder washout on my road as a result of the reconstruction of our road last year. I sent an email over 11 months ago, September 21st, to Chad and Rob K., no response. Sent another email September 23rd, no response. At that point, I had over two yards of shoulder material washed into my ditch, and there was another probably a yard or more on the street that was just paved. That shoulder fill was installed on September 8th, so not even two weeks after it was installed, we had a rainfall and it washed all that into my ditch. At that time, I asked for a stopgap measure to be put in place so my ditch wouldn't keep filling up. And after a week of no response from the town nor the city of New Berlin, I had to clean that mess up myself. I sent another email on April 16th with more shoulder washout into my ditch again. And in between that time, I've had a washout in the ditch almost every time it rains and on my driveway approach. These emails were sent to you, Chad, and to Rob. After not getting any response, I included all the board members. Still no response. So then I called two of the board members, Bob Stiegler and Stuart Buchholz. Bob ran some interference and finally got some activity to occur, which was to get some straw silt socks put in the ditch up the hill and along my property line in the front of the ditch. They originally wanted to slow the water. I instructed them to just put them along the edge of the road so it would protect my ditch. So I thank you, Bob, for running some interference to get something done. I had a conference call around April 20th with Rob and Greg Calhoun, the city engineer, and claimed they were supposed to be working on this since last September. and nothing has been happening. So New Berlin, Greg, because the edge of the road, I keep hearing, has to be protected. Well, the road went all winter through Friesland, it was all washed out. There was no shoulder material along the edge of the road. They proceeded to put more shoulder fill in, with no protection, and that's when I pushed to get the straw silts and socks and other things put in place. but that proceeded 80% of that has washed away and guess where it went down the hill that I live down from the hill. And that's not just on my property. Every place there's a hill on Springdale road, it's washed down. It's now on one of the sides of the hill on the town side is above the road surface. The guy way up at the other end of the street finally put in some traffic bond because nobody's taking care of the situation. So again, I reached out on April 12th and finally got a response from you, Chad, that you were actively working on it. The board and the Department of Public Works are both working on it and engineers. That was in June. I've heard nothing, nothing. And no one has been out. In there, I responded to you, Chad, on the 25th of June. Who in the village provides oversight to ensure the municipal agreement terms are implemented by New Berlin? I can't get an answer if they're responsible to get the remaining shoulder material off the road and the culvert that's five feet from my property line, the neighbor to the north, It's causing problems for me because it backs up because that culvert is blocked almost 90%. And it's been that way since last fall in September. No one responded. I can't get an answer on who is accountable to get this taken care of from the city of New Berlin. And if it isn't them, then who at the village of Waukesha has to do that? And then I also asked, again, you didn't provide updates to these items that have been asked since the first email on September 21st. They did not clean out the culvert or ditch area. And it's backing up every time it rains into my property, causing more sediment to fill in what little ditch that I have. So I'm here tonight because I'm frustrated and extremely disappointed in the response by the village. I can't get any straight answers, can't get who's accountable here. And when I did call the office, I get, well, New Berlin did all the engineering work. You need to talk to them. Greg Wenstow doesn't have an engineering agreement with the city of New Berlin. The village does. And I expect you to run interference and get this taken care of. So when they came out and New Berlin put that additional fill, I just happened to be there. And I was told that they would be out to clean that culvert out. Well, that was in June. We're now in late August. Nothing's been done. Nothing. And what's really disappointing is that the village of Waukesha has been out on our road a number of times and did not take any of that material that's up on the road. Bicyclists use that to get down to the trail and back. We're at the bottom of the hill. People are driving around that material on the road. That's not a safe situation. But again, this shoulder washout up the hill from me, I don't own that property, but I'm the one that's being affected. And the neighbor to the north of me, other than his culvert being clogged up and his ditch being filled in, stone just is on his driveway approach and along the front of the road, it doesn't really affect him. I'm the one that gets stuck cleaning up this mess. So I would like some answers again. Who in the village provides oversight to ensure the municipal agreement terms are implemented by New Berlin. Chad, who is that?

Under the laws, they're not allowed, because this isn't on the agenda to talk and gab a discourse during public comments. This is an opportunity under the law that they allow you to make your statements. They'll take it under advisement. They can refer it to a committee, but they can't have a discussion about it under the law. I'm sorry, but that's just the facts. So read all your questions, and we'll write them down, and they'll assign someone to get back to you. Fair enough?

The city of New Berlin has still not cleaned out the neighbor's ditch area to the north. The culvert is almost full, as I've said, and it's been that way since September of 2025. And what makes it even more painful is I was in contact with Tamara Simpson, the the city of New Berlin engineer that was heading up this project and forewarned her about the water issue here. I've lived here at this residence for over 40 years. I know what that water coming down the hill can do. She basically chose not to heed any of my concerns about just putting fill in. and the road has not been cleared up. A brand new road and it's got rocks. We get dump trucks and heavy trucks running over that. It's a brand new road and they're driving over these rocks and sometimes as I put in my emails to you, these stones get caught between their tire and they become projectiles. It's not safe for me to be out in the yard working at times. So I find myself having to do that when it's peak times and to compound the situation With the construction on 59, Springdale Road has become a primary detour. So I want to know, I want an update on what has been done. We're not engineering a jet plane here. It's been over 11 months. They already ruled out in September, I was told a ditch isn't going to be put in. So that limits the solutions here. This surely cannot be a new and unique situation. But yet, here we are 11 months later. And my fear is that this is not going to get resolved before winter. And these socks that were put in and the hay bales that were put in up the hill are going to get clipped by the snowplow and make a mess. Speaking of which, the city of New Berlin conveniently removed one of the socks that was put in, and yet I'm assured that New Berlin and the village have been working diligently to resolve this issue. And somebody did clip one of the hay bales that was put in as a replacement, And I alerted Rob. He came out. He didn't put a new one in, but he took that one away. So now the shoulder fill is washing out again. And we have had very little heavy rains this whole summer. So it's only a matter of time before that washes out. In April, our neighbor to the south, their second driveway entrance was completely washed out. They couldn't use it. And that was their primary driveway. So again, I would like an update and I would like answers to these questions and who's accountable in the village to ensure that New Berlin is doing what they're supposed to be and who in the village can get me an update that has some substance. So I thank you for your time.

Thank you. Anyone else?

Sandy Homwest, 230 South 3827 Milky Way Road. I'll confine myself to the fire station remodel schematic design, which was the last item on the agenda for discussion and possible action last meeting. And at that time, the packet had one plan in it, and then we got another plan. distributed, then I think it's J. And so in tonight's packet, we have both F and J. But when we saw the J last time, one of the board members said, well, you can't compare. without having the same sheet of numbers for J. So I didn't see that in the packet for tonight. If it's there, I missed it. Maybe it'll be handed out later. But I don't really have a lot to say about which plan is the better plan, whether you're gonna have nicer offices or put them in the space that we already have or whatever. What I'm troubled by is when we have A motion in a 2nd, and we're going to proceed with this only if it's at a certain dollar amount or below. And then it doesn't really come in at that dollar amount or below. So we reverse engineer it. To where it does come in at that dollar amount. And it just doesn't feel right to me that that's the way to go about it. I mean. I think there's a strong desire to have a fire improvement made, but there's also a strong desire not to have to go to referendum. And so now we've taken this project. I don't know if there's anything in the packet that will be handed out tonight on these numbers, but when the contingencies dropped to whatever it was from 15 to five and 10 to five or whatever it was, Stuff it just didn't feel like you know, it was being done in good faith I mean if your firehouse is gonna cost you more than four four and that's what you want then go for it, but Reverse engineering this thing down to four three nine three just sort of seemed strange to me. Thank you for your time and listening to me Thank you anyone else

All right, hearing none, we'll move on. Reports, starting with the clerk treasury report. Anything from the board on that? Public works report, anything on that one?

I guess the only comment I had is that, and I know it's been on the agenda a lot, was that replacement of that culvert on Townsdale Road in the zone. I kind of like ran into Rob yesterday or whatever, and he said it turned out really good. So hopefully that it did. I never checked it completely out or whatever, but he says that where the crew that they had, different organizations that helped out, it turned out awesome.

Yep, that's the last item under the DPW portion of their reports. They have had to go back and add some more riprap. I don't think that's done yet. I heard from this last week that that's planning to get put in, though, to help with some of the drainage issues coming out of the new culvert that's been extended in size. But yes, it was done in the last month and is where we wanted it to be. All right, fire department. or sheriff reports, anything on those? We will be getting a new deputy sheriff starting Saturday for our contract. Our current deputy is going to day shift. Congrats on the move. So we'll be getting a new one that you guys will meet here at the next meeting. Backing up one thing on the DPW part, Are we getting feedback again, Chris, on these microphones? The pre-construction meeting was done on the new building last week, and the tentative schedule is breaking ground for starting the grading portion of the project in September with the goal of putting up the shell of the building starting in October. So that's moving along pretty well. Nothing else on the fire or sheriff reports. We'll move on to the Wii Commissioner non-compliance. Anything on that? All right, moving on then. Approval of previous meeting minutes. Go ahead, Chad.

Did you include the non-compliance with the Wii Commissioner?

Yeah, I said both. Okay, I just got a question on that.

Tyler Lowe on Holiday Hill and Genesee Road. Yep. When we approved his property, I think, I believe I made a motion to have that container gone within a year because he said he was going to be building a house in a year.

The person that the original complaint was against was Kyle Dempsey, and he sold the property to Tyler Lowe. Tyler Lowe has been emailed or mailed a letter and a certified letter. And he has since then sold the property to a third party. And I have just found out the name and address of the new property owner and have just mailed him a new letter as well. So it's kind of, they keep selling the property.

Well, I think that container ought to be gone.

Yeah, well, it's a new owner, so it starts over. There's been a new complaint, new owner, so we are working on that.

Okay.

Any questions? Anything else? All right, July 23rd's meeting minutes. Looking to approve those. Any comments, questions, concerns, or a motion?

I'll make a motion to approve the July 23rd, 2026 meeting meetings.

I'll second it. Wait a minute. What date is that again? July 23rd. July 23rd. Sorry, okay. You were here.

I was here.

All right, so it's been motion and second. Is there any discussion? All right, hearing none, all those in favor of approving the minutes for the prior meeting on July 23rd of this year, say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Motion carries. All right, moving on to the action items on the agenda. Up first, discussion of possible action on a signage request for petitioner Matthew Wegner doing business as signs and lines by stretch for aerionics built for the property owned by Glen Gary Holdings located at South 30 West 24670 Sunset Drive for the approval of an existing internally illuminated freestanding sign. It says for approval of use of, it's going to be to reface that. So the sign itself, the structure is there, it's just changing out the signage as far as what company's on it. Hopefully you've looked in the packet for that. There was some discussion at our staff meeting about this due to the location of it compared to the right-of-way. It is under the 10-foot mark. That's what's considered required. However, we do have the ability to waive that to allow it to be closer. It's about two to three feet from the right-of-way where it stands currently. So that sign's been there for an undetermined amount of time. We weren't able to figure out how long, but it's been there quite a long time. as it is. It's just putting up a new business name on the front of the sign.

And the other thing we should note is we heard you loud and clear. We just had this one on the agenda. The staff knows we want these at the joint meetings from now on so that Sean is here to answer any questions. This one was already on and we told the property owner it was on. We didn't feel comfortable to take it off.

All right any motion on the floor or questions about it I'll make a motion to Give a new sign is request for South 30 West 2 4 6 7 0 Sunset Drive Okay to include the staff recommendations.

Yes. Okay. Is there a second? I'll second it. Any discussion?

So has there been any, with these signs being lower than the ordinance allows, has there been any problems with it? Viewing around them or anything?

No, if you look at the, it's just that skinny pole that they're on. I know of no issues from that perspective. Just to be noted though, we can deny this because it is within that 10 foot mark. So this isn't like an automatic thing just because it's already there. Just so that you're aware.

What is the height discrepancy? What do you mean? What the ordinance says is 10 feet. What are these?

No, it's not height. It's the distance from the right-of-way. Oh, so heights don't matter. No, that's all okay. Everything else, other than where it is from the edge of the road and right-of-way area, that's the only issue with the signs as it is.

Okay. I just didn't know if it was black in the view of any vehicles or trucks or if there's any problem that way, but okay.

Yeah, I don't know of any complaints either from the Sheriff's Department or from Village Hall that there's complaints about it.

Okay.

Any other discussion?

All right. All those in favor of approving the sign as noted in the request with the staff recommendation, say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? That carries. Up next, a brief discussion here on 2026 loans that we need to take to fulfill our budget here for the roads, for paying for the ambulance that we had delivered, and then the public works building project. Chris, do you want to explain? You got me too.

Go ahead.

OK. So we're at about $2.8 million total for the entire loan for the year. Going through Waukesha State Bank, Chris has been able to get some rates and is able to split the loan so that the building project is at a 20-year loan, 10-year loan, or a five-year loan. And then the road project can be either the five or the 10. We can do it all as one bond. We don't have to make two separate bonds. That saves us money on the processing portion of it. So that saves us probably 10, $15,000 by doing one. And we can have those two sides split so that the road slash ambulance and all of those expenses that are under that category can be under a 10 year loan. And then the building itself that's being built can be under a 20 year loan to spread out those payments to make it less of a burden on the taxpayers. So that'd be my recommendation is that we're gonna do a 10 year loan for the road project and the other expenses like we've been doing for the last few years on these loans. And then the public works building portion of the loan for $2 million would be the 20 year loan. THE DOWNSIDE TO THE 20-YEAR PORTION IS WE'RE NOT ABLE TO SECURE A FIXED RATE. IT IS AN ADJUSTABLE RATE SUBJECT TO FIVE-YEAR INCREMENTS. EVERY FIVE YEARS IT'S GOING TO BE THE RATE FROM THERE FORWARD THEN FOR THE NEXT FIVE YEARS IS GOING TO BE BASED OFF OF THE I forget what the exact percentage is that's in the packet, but it does fluctuate. So we're good for five years, and then at the five-year mark, 10-year mark, 15-year mark, we could either go up or down based on the rates at the time for the 20-year portion of the loan. The 10-year loan portion would be fixed. So the payoff charts are in your packet. I think Chris looks like she put out some paper copies for you to see in person as well.

Those, the paper copies are full draw. Um, the ones in the packet were, if we did more of a construction loan with the DPW building, but because of the way that building is going to be invoiced, it's better for us to take a full draw of the 2 million at once. So that's what the additional paperwork is showing.

So the current interest rate is 3.8, is that correct, what I'm seeing, or am I reading it wrong?

Several sheets, let me go back and look at them quick, just to be looking at the correct one.

Yes, that is correct. Yeah, right, 3.8?

Yeah.

For the 20-year portion, correct.

Yes.

And that would be, we'd be stuck with that, and that could be stable for five years, and then it's subject to adjustments again? Every five years it'd be subject to an adjustment, yeah, until it's paid off.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it would be blended between those two loans. There was some comparisons in there from Citizens Bank, and their numbers are pretty high compared on the interest rate side of it. So that's why we're recommending the Berkshire State Bank option of the two. Any other questions or motion? I don't have the exact dollar amount at this point because, well, are we still waiting for a couple things?

No. Not for the exact dollar amount for what?

Oh. The total loan. Because it's $2 million total for the building side, the capital building side of it.

It's $1,019,000 for the Rhodes Ambulance is what that loan amount would be.

That's not for the building, though, right?

No. That's just the roads and the ambulance. The building is $2 million.

Yeah, and that's the one at 3.8. Correct.

Correct, yes.

I mean, $2 million is a loan. That doesn't necessarily mean we're going to use it all. Right.

No, the $2 million is a loan for the building side. It would be an additional million for the other stuff. So it's...

It's actually going to be $3,019,000. I get that.

I guess I'm just saying as far as the building comes out, the bid was less than $2 million.

Correct. So to clarify on that, the public works building project is expected to be in the 1.7 to 1.8 range with contingencies built into that. There was... Money that we wanted to allocate after that to be able to continue a fire department project because we have to pay Fisher and Fisher entice The ongoing cost there and that's coming from the rest of them.

All right, that's kind of where I was heading is correct So that's why we were going for the full two million that was within the budget to be able to pay for all the above all right, I will make a motion to go ahead with the 3.8 percent interest one Two million dollars, is that correct?

Well, it'd be either You wanna do 10 year for the road and ambulance portion and then 20 for the other part?

Exactly. Okay. I didn't know how you divide that up.

Okay, so the motion would be for the Waukesha State Bank municipal loan to be $10 million for the road and other costs and then 20 for the public works or the capital improvement portion. I'll second that. Any other discussion or questions? All right. Hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? All right, that carries. Up next, we have two CDs coming due that we need to be discussing. The first one is listed as Citizens Bank, the general fund CD that we have that we created back earlier in the year. Chris, you want to give a recommendation?

Well, we've got two options. Right now, the CD is a seven-month CD at 3.93%. So Citizens Bank has a special for 14 months at that same rate. Or it can go into the money market, which is the same as this 3.93%.

I'm sorry, I'm looking at one here that says certificate of deposit specials, 14 months, is that 4%?

That's annual percentage yield, yes. The interest rate in the column next to it is 3.93%. That's what you're... That's what I'm basing it on now, yeah.

All right, the alternative, it looks like, from Waukesha Stamp Bank is...

Pretty much the same.

A one... The numbers are so tiny on this page.

They're the same for Waukesha State Bank. Here, you want the bigger version? Sure, that'd be good. Here's the bigger version.

Yeah, so it's 3.93 for the 14 month as Chris described from Citizens Bank, and then it's 3.928, so a fraction of a percentage to go with Waukesha State Bank for a similar term. So it'd be easier just to roll the money over where it is, otherwise we can switch over to Waukesha State Bank again with the money. Just which side, what length is the term you want?

Right. The other option is you can put it in the money market, just get rid of the CD and put it in the money market. Do you still want a CD?

Which is what's the money market at today?

The 3.93 was what it was when I did the big statement.

So the money markets fluctuates every month where this would be a fixed amount for the period of time that we would select. So if we think the interest rates are gonna go down, then it may be better off to do the CD.

I'm on that page that we should stick with the CD.

Yeah, me too. Okay, that'd be great. Okay. Interest rates are gonna go down.

All right, what term do you want?

I think the 14-month one is...

Stick with Citizens Bank?

Yeah. That's my opinion. Okay. We want to go a longer one. I mean, the interest rate is the same.

Any issues with that?

Anybody else? I think it's kind of volatile time, so 14 months gives us protection, and we have plenty of time to make an alternative decision after 14 months.

Okay. Is there a motion on the floor, then?

I'll make a motion to renew it for the 14 months, 3.93%. I'll second it.

All right, any other discussion? Okay. All those in favor of approving the general fund CD to be rolled over at Citizens Bank for the 14-month special, that's as described. Say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? That carries. Same discussion, but for the capital fund CD, that's a separate fund. We can't mix the two. So you want to do the same thing? If so, a motion?

I'll make a motion that we roll a capital budget over to, or CD over to Citizens Bank for 14 months.

Okay, I will have to take, right now the CD is just over $500,000 because it's had interest in the last seven months. I will have to take roughly $200,000 out of that to pay for the capital purchases of the front end loader and I don't remember, there was something else we bought.

Yeah, the wood chipper and the front end loader and the firetruck.

That's what it was, yep. So that'll all have to come out of that CD before it gets rolled over.

All right, so to clarify, Stu, for your motion, it would be rolling it over with the existing or available funds after these purchases are deducted.

Sounds good.

All right, I'll second that. Any other discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor of the citizens of the bank, capital fund, CD as just discussed, say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? That carries. Up next, fire department remodel schematic design. You guys want to come up to the microphone?

You can sit at the table there.

Just do me a favor, when you go up, just make sure that the green dot's out on the microphone there. All right, you're all aware of who Brian and Connor are, but they can introduce themselves again if they wish. Looks like Brian's handing out a copy of a packet, the same as up on the wall, that you can review either from the gallery or from your table. All right, Connor, you want to go ahead? Yep.

Good evening, everyone. This is Connor and Brian Fisher from Fisher & Fisher Tice Architects. We've been working for the past few months on the first phase, the schematic design phase of the fire station project, and basically prepared this short slideshow here just to share a lot of the content that's in the packet. We're going to work through this at kind of a high level and then turn it over for more kind of details and discussion. As you know, this has been kind of a real puzzle and challenge. We're looking at physical constraints, budget constraints, pros and cons of schemes. But I'd say we're feeling like we are very close to a scheme that really meets the needs and basically gets as much as we can for the budget. So if you flip to page two, The next three pages are three schemes. Alphabet soup is F, J, and K. I'll explain these at a high level. These are all kind of variations on the theme. So those are there for your reference. If you flip ahead, get yourself to page six. This is really the kind of, explanation of what we've been studying together with Chad and Captain, or sorry, Chief Joel. If you look across these, we're really manipulating kind of the front bar, the living quarters in blue, the office space in green, and studying size, footprint of the building, adjacencies, and then of course kind of checking in with how the cost is looking. So starting on the left here, Scheme F, that was presented at the board meeting two weeks ago. That's basically the longest bar. If you follow the dashed red lines over, Scheme J really tightened up that bar so it's only blue living quarters and we're reusing the existing office suite in green and actually building more space in the upper garage bay. Then Scheme K on the far right is kind of splitting the difference, trying to squeeze that bar a bit and find uses in the existing office space. If you flip ahead to page seven, This is us basically trying to distill down months of work into bullet points. If you start in the upper left there, basically all these schemes are cousins. They're all pretty similar if you look at them. We have not specifically talked about this, but the intent is for any of these additions to basically match the existing brick, windows, all the materials, all the colors that'll look like it's been part of the building forever. Number two, if you look at all these schemes, the yellow area is basically the extension of all the garage bays. That's basically consistent throughout. I think through working with the task force, we like that option. It lets all the vehicles be kind of not double parked. Everybody has their own space. Number three, the blue living quarters, that layout is pretty much dialed in the kitchen. And day room to the north, sleep rooms along the bar. And then magenta or the pink kind of in the existing lower bay, that's where we're doing our turnout gear lockers and EMS storage and some other storage and things like that. Five, six, seven, and eight are things we've talked about quite a bit. Those are just kind of the utilities. So the utilities on the project are gonna be all the same no matter what scheme we proceed with. And then just always kind of checking on things. None of these are basically anticipating re-roofing any of the existing building. Going to the upper right there, and now you can kind of flip back and forth. There's also, we put the plans on the bottom left for you just to kind of check in. So basically these are the differences now between the schemes. In scheme F, the office suite is at the south end of the bar addition, that's the green there. This office suite would be directly adjacent to the blue, the living quarters and sleeping quarters. And there's basically no construction within the building, the existing building in the upper bay area. This did at the time kind of leave the existing offices unassigned. Scheme J now. This is basically the tightest addition scheme in blue. This would be reusing the existing offices and building more, building an exercise room and building another office in the green there. As we're looking at this we are definitely kind of being real about what the construction of this is gonna look like. If we are building things kind of in the existing space like that, that's probably gonna need to get like totally vacated during construction. Whereas some of the other schemes you could use that upper bay for kind of a skeleton fire department ambulance crew. Finishing off on J there, the bar, the blue addition that is the smallest footprint is all basically the living quarters. What that does mean is that basically the south sleep room and the south toilet room are basically on the outside wall. That's kind of the view of the parking lot and vice versa. Finishing off with K, similarly to F, the green office suites are outside. We did find some ways to kind of tighten the bar. So that has the office space directly adjacent to the living quarters. Similarly, this would keep the upper bay just open. And then you have to look at the enlarged plan with the existing office space. We're looking at ways to basically reuse that. So the small, basically the assistant chief's office could become a flex office. Perhaps that's a small conference room or the sheriff's office. Then we're looking at repurposing the larger conference room to be the exercise room for the fire department. perhaps that could be more kind of a village asset, not just directly, you know, not just for the fire department. If you flip to page eight, this is the last page. And so the set, kind of understanding what's drawn and what it means and interpretations of pros and cons, these are basically, these are our cost estimates at the schematic design phase here. What we've done is we've kind of worked through some of the cost estimates from the other cost consultant and kind of checked and scrubbed and back checked. And these are our best estimates kind of as we look at the project right now. So basically what we've done is we've taken size of the addition multiplied by cost per square foot. Size of an interior renovation multiplied by cost per square foot. Down the way, you're gonna see kind of the grocery list of things we've been talking about for the design of this project so far, the generator, the paving, landscape, contingencies, furnishings and equipment. And so just, if you look at the very bottom, Scheme F, if you round it up, is kind of right at that 4.4 million for the total project budget. Scheme J is 4,063,000. That's a difference of, I think, 330,000. And Scheme K, the one that's kind of down the middle, is 4.228 million. And so I think, is that 150? 165. Thank you. Basically, 165,000 to get you from F to K, another 100, no, sorry, from J to K, another 165 to get you from At the very bottom, the notes there, A through F, these were on the cost estimate that was presented two weeks ago. We're just trying to basically account for all the parts and pieces and make sure we understand, because this is kind of a complex project that's gonna touch a lot of stuff. We just wanna make sure everything's at least understood of if it's ready for this project or it needs to be upgraded or where some of those additional amenities are gonna come from. That was our super high level kind of opening presentation. We're here for questions or comments or if anybody else wants to kind of expand on that. Thank you.

Thank you. So just I guess to back up a little bit. So two weeks ago we met, obviously Al wasn't here. The motion was to table this decision to tonight so that all five of us were present. Al obviously gave us his recommendation by letter but wasn't able to vote. So that's why we've gotten where we are tonight. After that meeting, I met on a couple occasions with Brian and Connor, just the three of us, to shore up some of these details. And through those meetings is where they've come up with this third scheme, or well, not the third, but third for tonight's purposes anyways, it's well beyond three, through all the letters here. I'm gonna start off by saying we should probably abandon F. It's too close to our limit. And I don't feel comfortable from the dollar perspective with that, which I think I had made aware last meeting. Through shaving some of the portions of the building on the addition, that's how they've come up to the scheme for K that reduces the costs. J being the cheapest of the three. So realistically it's looking at J or K as a whole. What we talked through our meeting was if the board feels that that's the proper move to go forward with, we could have the motion be that we proceed with letter K as our option. with the agreement within the motion, hopefully, that if we get through the design phase and determine that that one is going to actually possibly even increase in costs to where we're getting back to our threshold that we can't exceed, that we would be approved just through the process to switch to J at that point, knowing that it's going to be cheaper overall. uh so really our options are go with k go with j or go with k as and having j as a backup through the design phase without having to come back again to the board if needed at that point there would be an update if that would be something that would occur we're not going to just do without telling you guys but without having to come back and rehash everything and to determine why things are more expensive and whatnot. The third option would be to have the motion be K with a backup of J in the design phase if necessary. The fire chief has been in contact with his command staff. That's how we got the initial stuff we talked about at the last meeting. He's continued, I've given him these other drawings. He's been able to share those with the membership and unless he wants to come up and speak separate from what i'm going to say i guess i'll just paraphrase by saying that his membership is is good with any of the three options at this point the biggest concern between j and k through the design of the two the concern that's been raised is a similar concern that's been raised in all of these meetings and discussions is I'll use the word flow because that's the word that keeps getting used. It's the flow of going out of the offices into the living space, into the garage, and so on. So with J, it's going to be a little bit longer of a hallway where you have to zigzag between the offices and all of that. The fire department's okay with that from what Chief Joel said, if that's the option that's selected. K, it's all in one straight line. You leave the offices and it's all one straight hallway going from offices to, with the door separating, but to the living space area. So discussion, comments, questions?

So the basic difference between K and J is what you have just mentioned, is that correct? Where's the $150,000 savings on J as opposed to K?

We're reusing and remodeling a couple offices. We're building two offices in the garage. If you look on the wall, I'll use my cursor. So this office space would remain the same with some touch-ups, paint, carpet, whatever things like that to freshen those to make them match everything else. We would build a new office in this space so that there's an additional one for the fire personnel to use. The exercise room would be within the existing space. This whole area here that's being circled on the wall is where the ladder truck currently is facing to the bottom of the map or to the east. So that overhead door go and then be walls put into, excuse me, into that space. With J, the addition shrinks by roughly 1,200 square feet, if my member is correct, because we're not putting all new offices in the green outside of the building. They're being utilized with what's existing and adding some within the garage space to convert it over to office space from garage space. So that's where a lot of the savings is because you've got brand new building minus 1,200 square feet from F and K. If you look at the layout to F that's on the wall now and then to K, they're very similar. Where K reduces costs is because they're shaving the front of the building off. I say front because that's where the new entrance would be, but the south end of the addition. They're cutting that back, I think, is in the 12 to 15 feet range. So it saves a couple hundred square feet at minimum on where to save costs there. So that's really the biggest difference there is we're going to have one straight line for everything, with the offices being new in this space, and then reutilizing this space for other purposes. The chief's current office right now, Chief Joel's office, would be converted to a conference room. Where Andy sits and then the deputy sits could be converted into a singular office for the deputy by themselves or something else. A shared space, as Connor mentioned. And then what's the existing workspace and conference room in the middle here? The wall would be taken out between that and the existing storage area, and that would become one large exercise space there. Okay. Where Jay... Yeah, so with... F, the exercise is part of the green. J, exercise is green, but inside the current garage space. So that's another piece of why it's not just offices, but it's moving the exercise room into the existing building and repurposing space or square footage for that purpose. For J, it's not shown and depicted on here, but on the top here where you go from the hallway out towards the two pickup trucks, this would become a firewall to separate the green from the garage space. So there would be another door here. So this would become a firewall or a fire barrier, whatever you want to refer to it as, in this space. Where right now with K, that naturally exists with the front of the building as it already is. Conference room for J would be where it is now. It is, again, remodeled and freshened up. For K, if FIRE wants a conference outside of maybe a small meeting in the chief's office, they'd have to go through the garage over and they'd use the existing space for those conference meetings that they have in that, or if it's training or whatever it is that they're doing in that space. So there is a break in the quote unquote flow for some of that purpose. And all three drawings is kind of brought up. Let's get back to the last page of your packet you've been presented. The note for all the schemes on the bottom, A through F, that's all that's there right now. Um, with the furnishings portion of all three of these projects or, or schemes, the furnishing costs you can see is a lesson, uh, from what was originally planned for there. So, uh, that's something that we'll have to consider throughout the design portion of this, because. If we go with K, we'll have to be looking at adding in new furnishings or new desk furniture and stuff like that for the offices. Whereas if we go with J, we're reusing the desks and then touching up the rooms around that. So furnishing is gonna be probably one of the more difficult parts of the design phase because we're gonna have to figure out what we're gonna be able to reuse. And then... what's going to be purchased new for the new building or for the new station when it's open. Other questions?

So with Jay, if we went with that, you'd be using the same, well, you wouldn't have to use the same furnishings. The amount of money is different. You could put new furnishings in the whole entire offices, the chief's office and everything. For Jay?

Correct. well there's i'll call it wiggle room because it's just under 4.1 million from our i guess isn't that what we're kind of worried about was wiggle room because the other ones were already up there and now this one's much more reasonable yeah i think to be honest from my perspective uh i i can see what you're saying and and if the money is available at the end of the project maybe we can look at doing that but realistically J and K that wiggle room for each of them is like they're going to be built into things like if we end up needing a well, there's still question marks for some of that kind of stuff. So as we get through the project, we're not probably gonna be able to just say we're going to allocate money for new desks either way.

Is the well issue still up in the air?

I thought that was kind of decided that we have enough well space to know what, what I presented for that last time was Guthrie and Fry believe that it can sustain it. with our existing well. There's still testing that needs to occur either way. They have to get the flow rates from the public works building from Ford, once that's available, to determine what's the needed amount of water for that building when it's built. And then through the design phase of this, they'll have to get the same from the fishers for that. Through all that, they're going to take that out and then do testing on the existing well, existing pump, to see if it's sufficient to be able to handle all that. The existing well, we already know likely will not cover filling the trucks It's gonna be able to be capacity for the buildings, but not filling up the trucks I don't think they use that for filling trucks.

No, well, I can't because it's not sufficient. All right.

Yeah, so it doesn't it's a no point. I

I was going to say, is that an issue at all? You can probably fill them off the hydrants faster than you can on a well. Yep. Yep.

Other discussions? I just got a quick question. The stairway on letter K. next to the EMS room that goes to a bunk above everything, there'd be storage above there, is that what I'm trying to, it doesn't picture that, I'm just curious where that's headed.

Yep, so what we're looking at is, I know a couple of you are already familiar with, fairly well with the fire station as a whole, but in the back where we have the laundry area currently, just behind the bathrooms here, there's a mezzanine space up there where they keep coolers and storage of items. The idea is there's gonna be an outside staircase above the door to the EMS room that would go up to the top of this new building or new room to make this a whole mezzanine above it. So there'd be a staircase coming up the side so that above the turnout gear and EMS rooms in the current garage, out where the ramp is currently, to picture this location, would be a storage on top of that room Like a mezzanine it would be mezzanine So that gives them additional area for storage out in the open versus having a separate room dedicated to it.

So it frees up space for us Another question I got nothing to pick but I know we talked about garage doors, but We still only have one 14-foot garage door I thought we were gonna do two and I don't want to get picky in this schematic part of it because that's by the design phase Yeah, but I just wanted to bring that up.

Yep. So that's all I We've been discussing the garage doors. If we end up, as it's noted in the packet, if we reuse the existing doors and tracks and put that out there, if that's deemed the proper way to go, they can add panels to those to make them taller. or we end up building in new doors but yes we are accounting for that but i just want to make sure that the likelihood is um actually at our last meeting discussing that it may be that we just do all six doors the same height for those future purposes but it may just be those those deep three where the tenders the ladder truck and then the truck and trailer combos are they maybe those three doors are taller but yes it's being accounted for i just want to make sure it was in that Yep, thank you.

Good question for comment anything else I'm gonna say I started this can of worms I'm gonna make a motion that we approve scheme K as our number one priority and and we could use Jay as a backup if the need be. I think going cheaper isn't always the best way to go. It's what's gonna be good for the department and the village in the long run down the road. What's gonna be beneficial for the department. I don't wanna cut corners, so I would go with the with the middle scheme, and I would say approve K as our primary, and you could use J as a backup plan if needed.

All right. Is there a second? I'll second.

Okay. Other discussion?

I guess I'll just give my comments, I guess, too. From J to K, it's $165,000 with the fishers. Said it was and I think four hundred sixty five thousand. I think one we talked about and this since day one flow and I think by far K is better flow by Black and whites it's two hundred times better and I think he'll give us like some expansion For future down the road if we need to add something or put something that'll give us more wiggle room down the road so we don't have to do an addition to the outside of this building. I think it'll save us money down in the long run. So I think the $165,000 was well spent. So that's where I'm at with that. Thank you.

I have a question on key. Where's the exercise room on key? My printing is small maybe. My eyes aren't as good as they used to be.

So I was trying to show that up here. So if you can see, Bob, just look on the wall. Look up on the wall circle for you. So this this orange or whatever color this is This space here right now is the existing conference room and that little office or workstation like where the copy printer is right in this space here on Going on the hallway to the left side of the hall On the outside of that wall is the long skinny storage room that we currently have out here That comes its access from the garage That whole space will become the exercise space. So the wall that separates the conference and the storage will be knocked out and then those will be combined into the exercise room.

So how does that compare with Jay's exercise room? Is it size wise? Size wise? Kay's got the biggest exercise room of all three.

Just a, just a real quick comment to be helpful on that. One of the last things we've kind of been working with on all these schemes is the exercise room. And basically we've got the program request or program statement from the fire department for the equipment. Again, that's not our decision to make, but scheme K there actually started putting in and Connor can speak to even some of that better, but the pieces of equipment that are on the list, if you will, that takes up a lot of space. There's not, sufficient space in F the way it currently exists would be significantly short if you look at comparing the size of those rooms to put all that equipment in. K would be, excuse me, J would be closer, but still scheme K here has by far the most space allocated to try to get all that exercise equipment in. And that's something that may, whatever you choose to do tonight may take some refinement.

You want to say more about that Connor or is that kind of it?

So they are significantly different in size between the three schemes. That's true.

I zoomed in if that helps you at all. So this is the current officer area, current, um, conference area storage. This wall will come out and then that'll all be in there. So it shows you, for the size of an elliptical machine, treadmill machines, your dumbbell weights, one of those multi-station units, that there's a potential layout where all of that could fit. F and J would have to probably scale back. It may only be one elliptical, one treadmill, and less dumbbells or something else, some other configuration, because they're smaller. F is the smallest of the three. I think J was the bigger, closer to this. And then this is the largest of the three, as far as the exercise room goes. So since it's the topic of discussion right now, if you look, here is what would be Kay's exercise room, and here's what Jay's would be. So it's a few hundred square feet smaller.

Roger, you've been quiet. I'm really liking what we're seeing, Jay. And when you lack, when you talk about, I'm sorry, K, when you talk about it meets all of our requirements pretty much. I mean, we talked about exercise. We wanted flow. You've been talking about flow. It seems that K gives us everything that we want here. both for a benefit of reasonable cost, not the lowest cost, but it doesn't have to be. I'm kind of suspected. I find the lowest bid, there's something in there that I'm not seeing, but I like the fact that we've got plenty of room in order to make changes, minor changes, if we have to, with the budget that has been given us on K. So I'm very much for that. I like the way this whole process has developed. And the things they want to do, we want to have people that are, you want to have, you know, Staff, the fire department, 24-7. We want to do the things as far as, and that's where this discussion all started, is that we have to have better service and a better circumstance as far as being able to have people there on a more regular basis, like all day. So I'm very pleased with the way this looked at. When I saw this, when I saw Scheme K here, I mean, I said, boy, that's gotta be the one.

All right any other comments I Do want to touch on one thing when it comes to the finance side of this do it I don't think it's going cheap on any of the options. They're all four plus million dollars the decision that needs to be made is what concessions we're going to make throughout the design phase of this to the points that were made in the common portion of tonight's meeting. We have a list of items that all the schemes have under the cost estimates for A through up, up on the screen right now for you, that are things that I call concessions in some ways, being that they're things not added to those costs. So none of the three I think are a cheap option. whether or not we have enough padding to do all the things we need to do. My biggest concern with Kay is on the financing side, the furnishings is going to be tight. We've already talked about needing a new turnout gear machine or a decon cleaning machines. That's in the 50 to $60,000 range. So those two pieces of equipment could take up half of our furnishing budget. And there's still not desks or cabinets or fridges and everything else that's in there. It's gonna be a part that we're gonna have to have lots of discussions in the design phase to figure out how that's all gonna work. because I refuse to allow this project to continue by buying cheap things, to your point, Stu, meaning we're not gonna go to, I like going to Menards because I'm there too often myself, personally, but we're not gonna buy a cheap fridge from Menards compared to one that's gonna last longer from somewhere else. And that's where my biggest concern with Kay is, is the furnishings part. We don't have much room there for that. So, any other discussion?

having a backup going to Jay, if we have to, makes this whole thing work to our best benefit. So we've covered all the bases here.

All right, anything else? Okay, hearing none, the motion on the floor is to approve scheme K as in King, utilizing Jay as in John as a backup option. if necessary during the design phase of this project to trim costs. It's just simpler to switch over to the other one at that point if necessary. So that's the motion on the floor. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? All right, that carries. Up next, payment of the bills in the grand total of $44,993.14. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you, Fishers. I'll make a motion to approve the expenses in the amounts stated, $44,993.14. I'll second it. All right. Hearing no discussion, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Carries, adjournment.

I'll move to adjourn.

Second. All right. We are adjourned.