Village Board - Regular Meeting

There we go. All right. It is six o'clock. I will call to order the village board meeting of Monday, April 20th. Aaron, could you call the role, please? Yes. Trusty Van Even Hogan here. Trusty Hower here. Trusty Casper here. Trusty Saunders here. Trusty Sarah here. Uh, Trusty Demet is expected to Dman. Deman, sorry. Wow, that was a blast from the past. Pass. Um he may join later. He may join via Zoom later. And then President Buckley here.

Okie dokie. Uh we're going to move on to the consent agenda. We have four items. Uh first is the minutes of the regular meeting April 6th. Second is a contract award for the 2026 sidewalk improvement project. Third, the console Silver Spring traffic signal synchronization project. And finally, a temporary beer license for Holy Family for the Angel Run May 25th. Any questions? Otherwise, motion. I move to approve the consent agenda as presented. Thank you. Do I hear a second? Second. Thank you. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Moving on to the report of the village officers. Mr. Village attorney.

Nothing to report tonight, Mr. President. You know, that's a good thing. Yes, it really is. I'm always kind of disappointed that but it's almost always bad news. Uh Miss Village manager, uh no update this evening. Okay. Um for the village president report, I think the only thing that I would say is I think the last meeting we had was before the election. And I just wanted to thank the staff and Jamie and Aaron and all of their minions uh for pulling off another flawless election. And if it wasn't flawless, don't tell us about it. We're getting head nods, so I'm thinking it was flawless. Uh, any miscellaneous trustee comments?

I was going to ask along those lines, how uh things went at at Bashro Lutheran or is that what it We had both positive feedback from voters and um election inspectors at the location. They loved it. The parking was a huge improvement over Lidell. I feel like easier access and both voters and sta like election staff were very happy and the church positive they didn't really even know we were there. Any challenges with people not knowing there was a new location?

We more of a challenge was people were seeing the signs about um polling places going there. So we had more people who normally go to Cahill show up at Fayore Lutheran because they saw the sign before even though theirs hadn't changed. I would say I saw more of that than I don't believe that we we did not hear from Lidell or DPW that but we had signs all around there yard signs signs on the doors pointing them to the correct location. Great. Sounds like a success. Um one other thing we should just mention is the DPW did an amazing That was my next

No, you go ahead. No, I was uh I mean I'm sure that I speak for all of us when you know when I congratulate and thank DPW for uh a fantastic job last week as Matt was as joking before the meeting. Um he's sick of seeing records uh record setting this, record setting that. Uh, and uh, I haven't heard anything from anyone that that wasn't um, singing the praises of the work the DPW did and um, talking about how uh, well uh, Terara swimming pool operated. Um, see I can say that and not get the side eye and I'm really happy about that. Um,

I mean it was side eye. Yeah. Um, so I mean I just hats off to DPW and anyone else who helped with uh uh with any operations uh from last week's from last week's storms. Uh it was it was topnotch.

Thank you. Any other comments? All right, we will close that and move on to petitions communications. This is an opportunity for anyone in the audience to address the village board on any issue that is not on the current agenda. Are there any folks here looking to speak to the village board on something out of the agenda? Going once, going twice. All right, we'll move on then to general business. We have five items tonight. The first is discussion action on ordinance uh number 1924 amending the municipal code 88 regulating business hours in district 11. Kelsey. Oh, so we were contacted by um Chelsea Adams as well as the business improvement district. Um Chelsea is the regional director for Starbucks um and she was inquiring about the permitted business operating hours in Whitefish Bay. Uh Starbucks would like to open at 5:00 because they have a lot of customers that come in right at 6:00 and really creates a bottleneck for them. However, our municipal uh code restricts business operating hours to um to from 6:00 a.m. to 1000 p.m. U and there are a few exceptions. And so staff has drafted an ordinance um that would amend that code to allow businesses in district 11 to open at 5:00 daily with a conditional use. Um there's essentially a lot of different ways you could go about it. So, I drafted it with the least amount of change that would allow what they were requesting. Um, but th this would require an additional step for Starbucks and any other business that wants to open at 5:00 a.m. They would have to come to the plan commission for a conditional use permit.

What's your rationale for going the conditional use permit way instead of just flatly changing? I mean, I suppose they have an existing conditional use permit that has certain hours. they probably would need to go and change it anyhow. Is that the concept?

Yeah. A lot of businesses I didn't specifically look at theirs to see if it listed the operating hours um on there, but a lot of they always do. Yep. Exactly. And it allows the most amount of flexibility moving forward. Like if there was a certain type of use where you would be concerned about noise or odor, um any other type of nuisance, then the land commission could deny that request in those instances. Can I ask about Sendex and deliveries?

Do they I I I don't know what their delivery schedule is. Is it 5:00 a.m.? Is it 6? Is it 4? I mean, do we have a like we we probably already have a conditional use permit for exactly the right. So, uh, for Sendex, I'd have to look because they have the conditional use and they're also part Well, I guess this would be all zoning districts. So, I'd have to look at what their conditional use allows. I just want to make sure that if if they especially with our new building had any kind of

change in their delivery schedules that it you know that by making this 5:00 a.m. we're not handicapping ourselves when it should be 4 a.m. You know what I mean? Well, and this is operating hours so it's not specific to deliveries. Okay. Yeah. So there's two different things. uh LC did a nice job of taking the existing ordinance as it applies to exercise storefronts and just using that that terminology and that framework to just add early morning coffee really which is okay

that's about it because you it's not the full full variety of everything that Starbucks offers because of other things they got to get going in the morning. Um, I mean deliveries are already allowed outside of I did notice not part of the deliveries are not part of the operation of the C unless you want to make it part of it. No, which we don't which we don't do at this point.

All right. Yeah, I like for in in the future, I mean, broadly speaking, our business district should be doing business and so if there are any businesses who want to come forward and make these changes and it's not going to negatively affect the broader community, then all for it. I I do recall five, six, seven, eight years ago a request. Um whether that was from Starbucks or I feel like it there was also a yoga place that requested early hours and I think it was rejected. That's my recollection.

I think both are right because there is an exception that was written in for exercise facilities. So your memor is probably right that that came forward. So if you go into the like red line version which was page 16 of the packet you'll see exception two is exercise facilities. So that could be tied let's see the last year this was so that's currently permitted at 5 a.m. by conditional use. Oh well there we go. Starbucks I did find a a record of two different requests. I could not find I went through minutes and emails. I could not find why those didn't come forward. And I did dig because that was a little bit bizarre that it was brought forward and not didn't go through. But

any other trustee comments? I I I'm sorry. Just really quick because I I've been having a even while we've been discussing this, I've been having a hard time figuring out this is this is a this this is this would be a per business situation. Correct. I'm just triple checking. Correct. Okay. Any business that wants to open at 5:00 a.m. in District 11 would have to get a conditional use. That would be specific to that business. That's fine. I

move that the village board approve ordinance number 1924 amending municipal code uh section 8-8 pertaining to the regulation of business hours in district 11. Thank you, sir. I'll second. Thanks, Brian. Um, actually any members of the public interested in this going once, twice. All right. Any other discussion with trustees? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. I. I. I.

Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. All right. Moving on to the main event. Um, probably with slides and spreadsheets and all sorts of things. Discussion action on resolution 3199 authorizing the issuance of establishment parameters of the state of a sale of not to exceed 14.455 million of go promisary notes series 2026A. Welcome.

Thank you. And I'll just briefly tee this one up and then I'll let Kayla go through um a lot of pages and numbers. Um so just as a reminder, the village board adopted the 2026 to 2031 capital improvement plan in September of 2025. Uh so the um proposed debt issuance that's before the board this evening is really an implementation of that plan for the years 2026 and 2027. Um although the borrow is for $14.4 million. I do want to point out that $4.3 million of that will not impact property taxes or utility rates. And that's because those costs are reim reimbured through other funding sources such as grant funding, special assessments, and TID one projects. Um the estimated property tax impact for the average home valued at $685,000 is an increase of $2 um related specifically to debt on the tax rules for 2027 and then it actually decreases by $30 in 2028. Um there also was some changes to the CIP um which I've outlined in the memo. I just wanted to point those out. I believe everyone on the board should be familiar with those adjustments. Um, but if not, I'm happy to answer any questions. Uh, but for the most part, it's an implementation of the CIP that was adopted. So, with that, I'll hand it over to Kayla.

Thank you. Thank you all for having me once again. Um, as you all know, my name is Kayla Thorp. I'm a municipal adviser at Ellers's public finance advisors. I work on behalf of the village on all things public finance, utility rates, which we'll talk about in a little bit, debt issuance, capital planning, and economic development. Um, before you today is the pre-sale report. Um, as uh, President Buckley mentioned for 14,455,000 general obligation premisy notes, the information included in your packet, um, one outlines, um, kind of what Kelsey briefly summarized the repayment sources, the uses for the capital improvement project, um, but also some legal requirements that we um, in order to disclose to kind of what you're getting into, the authority you have to borrow this debt, so on and so forth. And so I'm not going to go through all of the kind of literature um before that. You can all kind of um have some sleepy reading and go through that. But know that you have the legal authority under state statute 671212 to issue general obligation promisary notes. Um as we've mentioned before, GEO debt capacity is limited to 5% of your equalized value. So I'll review the debt capacity analysis after this. Um and that this is being issued on a note of uh a term of 20 years. It is the maximum allowable um amortization period that state statute allows you. Note that certain projects are amortized short on under shorter terms and you can see that kind of in our structure but in whole um the notes are uh issued over 20 years. Uh the village is currently rated by Moody Moody's investor service and we will be seeking an additional rating for this call. Um, and then just the parameters um, constraints that we are placing on the sale. A parameter sale, which you've done in the past, um, is a little different than what we would say a quote unquote traditional sale. It allows us at Ellers to have more flexibility in establishing a sale date

that does not have to line up with your village board meetings. A traditional sale is that you authorize the sale not to exceed. We go out and sell the bonds on a day that corresponds with your board meeting so that you can authorize the sale, award it that night and sign all the paperwork. Um there may be 15 other sales in Wisconsin that day and limits the pool. And so we like parameters resolutions because it allows us to sell your notes on any day. Um really take a look at what is scheduled coming up in the bond market sale not only in Wisconsin but nationwide and pick a day that gives you the most favorable results and the least competition. And so that is what we're authorizing here today. Um then we'll authorize your village manager, your finance director to award the bid should it meet all of these parameters that we are listing here. Um and we then move forward with the closing process. So really just authorizing those two people to accept and approve the bids on your behalf. The parameters that we're establishing here tonight are an issue size of not to exceed $14,455,000, a maximum bid of $110% or minimum of 98.75. That probably doesn't re mean really much to you. It probably only means much to us in in public finance. It has everything to do with the discount premium that are built into your rates. Um, sometimes the underwriters take less of a cut on their end and then we get to downsize the issue or we need to upsize the issue based off of those costs. The true interest cost not to exceed 4.75% and then there's some majority adjustments that would limit this as well. All of these have conservative buffers built in to allow us flexibility given market conditions going on. Also I will mention because of the market volatility that we are currently experiencing a parameters resolution would allow us to adjust the sale date on the fly. Um and this we have done this recently because economic news is largely impacted by

international relations at this point in time. And so when we see interest rates spike or they spike overnight on leading up to a sale date, we can evaluate where those interest rates are in relation to the max interest rate that we have outlined in the parameters resolution also of what we've used in the planning documents. And if we're seeing that we're either going to be pushing up or it's not going to be financially advantageous for the village to issue debt on that day, we can reschedule the sale on a moment's notice still without further action by the village board. Is there a negative to not doing it like all the other communities do?

Most communities are doing parameters these days. Um, from an elected official standpoint, the only negative is that you're not specifically awarding the specific bid that wins. You're delegating that authority to your staff. How how far can you push it out, by the way? Month, two, six months. What's the as far as you deem you're going to run into some cash flow issues then the next piece

normally we can reschedule a sale and once things calm down within a day or a week. Um sometimes it's just a day issue and we see the markets come back down by the close of business we can move forward with the sale the next day. Um sometimes it's a week. I've only done this twice in three years where we've had to reschedule a sale. Um and both were due to kind of war relations internationally. Um, and so I just like to mention that because we do get calls the week leading up to sale from a lot of elected officials and staff saying, "Well, market the market spiked. What are we going to do?" We do have the authority to move the sale under a parameters resolution. Thank you.

Um, I'm going to move forward to the schedule which is on page six of the pre-sale report. Um, tonight you are authorizing the pre-sale report and the um, parameters resolution. We will have a due diligence call with your um bond attorneys, Corals and Brady, the week of April 27th. We are meeting with Moody's the week of April 27th. That's actually April 29th is a specific day. Um and we will distribute the official statement on May 6th. The official statement is like the prospectus in the public bond market. Gives a um an insight and detailed look to your financials, your operations, the quality of your credit um so on and so forth to potential underwriters and biders. Um, we award the sale on May 13th and then close on May 28th. And this will allow you to have the cash on hand to start funding your capital improvement projects over the summer. The first chart in the packet outlines your existing debt and all of the um abatement sources or the other repayment sources that are in red. So in 2026, you had $5.6 million in total general obligation debt payments of which the tax role was only liable for 2.6 of those. So, when Kelsey says that hit on the tax ro, that's kind of what we're talking about, and I will review that in depth later as well. The next chart is your extensive 2-year capital improvement list um on the next page, which outlines both 2026 and 2027 projects that will be funded by this issue. Um if you remember back when we presented a financial management plan over the summer, we were planning on two issues, a tax exempt and a taxable issue. Um Corals and Brady, your bond council reviewed the Sendex development agreement and opined that the Sendex development um payment related to public infrastructure can be made on a taxexempt basis because it is purely for um public infrastructure and not related to any guarantees that Sendex is making back to TID 1 um because all the

increment guarantees are related to TID 3. And so we canled the B issue, roped that into the A issue, which is here before you, and that's kind of where we get our par amount of $15,57,120 of what you need to fund your capital projects. The next chart takes a look at um building in cost of issuance and then also applying the cash on hand. staff informed dollars that we plan to apply about $640,000 of cash on hand or residual borrowing proceeds to downsize the levy portion and the water utility portion. We then build in cost of issuance which is adv um Ellers's fees, Corals and Brady's fees for bond council and disclosure. The rating agency takes has a fee. The underwriters discount is kind of where that moving number is going to come on on sale day which is their kind of the underwriters cut and then the paying agent you use as associated trust services um which ensures that you have timely payments on these notes. We then are accounting for a number of um estimated interest earnings and about $31,000 meaning you will temporarily invest these funds until they are needed. This is a little bit higher than you may normally see, but given that half in some of the majority of these funds are not um scheduled to be spent until 2027, it's this is still a conservative estimate. We um downsize the issue by those interest earnings so you don't overissue um and take on more debt than you need to. And that is how we get to our 14 million or $155,000. The next page outlines each of the repayment sources um and amortization schedules. So you have a levy portion that is being advertised over 20 years, a levy portion over 10 years, storm over 10 and 20 years. There's a water utility portion, a sewer portion, a grant portion related to streets, a grant portion related to sewer, and special assessments, and then TID one. All of those other repayment sources, as you

will see in the next um chart, are abated or paying their own way. And so moving left to right, we take your current debt profile and what you currently have on your books. We add in the new issues starting in orange and then take away all of the other repayment sources. So storm, water, sewer, grants, assessments, and TID ones will be repaying their own portions of the debt service related to those projects. And then therefore, of the um $1.5 million of principal and interest due in 2027 on this specific note, the tax role is only um responsible for about a quarter of that. Um much of it is abated by other repayment sources. And so moving farther left, if you'll see the um total net debt service levy and levy change from prior year, this will give you an understanding of what this proposed structure has an impact on your levy. And as Kelsey mentioned, we are facing only a one-year levy increase related to the new debt of about $141,000 before debt starts to drop off. Given that this is a bianual issue, we can expect that you will have a decrease in taxes in 2028 because you don't at this time plan to issue any debt. And then we will structure around the 2029 issue um around your existing debt profile to feather that in as much as possible. Um the structure just as it is given that a lot of that heavy upfront is being abated by TID and special assessments that drop in 28 was largely unavoidable. I tried to structure around it, but there's not enough tax levy supported debt to do that. So, over the 20 years of this plan, on an average home, the $21 million in principle and interest costs, we'll call the cost the average taxpayer $1,145 um over 20 years.

The next table six is takes a look at your general obligation debt capacity analysis. As I mentioned, uh, general obligation debt is limited to 5% of your equalized value as certified on annual basis. You are currently at 23% of your debt capacity with outstanding principal and interest obligations of $45,251,000. Um, we will be adding in the 14.4 million and that will put you at 31% of your capacity before that starts to drop off. That is very little utilization of debt capacity um, in relation to the size and scope of your operations. So it's something that you should be proud of. One, two, and then also know that you have significant dep debt capacity that will increase as your equalized value increases. Then the last chart is just to give you a 2-year um bond buyer indices trend. This does nothing but to just kind of exercise the um market volatility over the two years. We are in a higher interest rate environment than we were back in March of 24, but I just had to sale today for a community that has a less um it was a $10 million sale and same credit rating. Um and we got 3.5% today. So, I'm not promising that that's what it's going to be, but we are seeing competitive credits sell better right now,

which you are a competitive credit. So, I'm not super worried that we're going to have interest rate um concerns unless something happens in the next foreseeable future, but we'll evaluate that week by week. And I'm happy to answer any questions. Question and and maybe I missed it. Um you were talking about debt issuance in 2029. You thought that that was the next time we would be sorry 28. Okay, then I withdraw my question then because I Yeah, I was thought that I Okay. Yes, but

maybe we would stretch it three years and No, the 28 debt issue you won't start paying until 2029. So, we still have the unavoidable tax decrease in 2028. Fair enough. Yeah, I just be all the schedules of when we're doing would have been and we've had a lot of changes to this as well. So, we've spent the better part of the last week confirming with Kelsey and Jamie that we have the right um funding, but also that it's general obligation notes and should something change with either the size, scope, or scale of a project, you can reallocate funds unilaterally without having to take um legal action, you can just have a resolution of the village board to reallocate those funds.

Excellent. Out of curiosity, um, in your debt capacity analysis, knowing that we probably will have another, you know, we have we passed a six-year CIP. Yeah. And it has debt issuances in it. Um, have you run numbers on our percent limit in in two years and again in four years? Like, do we have a feel for what it will be? Yeah, if you look back to the financial management plan from over the summer, that's in there. I haven't updated it with the change from the CIP right now. I'm happy to do that um and send that over for you guys. Um but we can also take a look at it again um when we do a FMP update.

Fair enough. I assume it is it's not going to explode and No. And I don't remember myself having concerns about it. So yeah, what's unique is that historically it's been more general fund or levy supported debt and there's obviously going to be a huge shift to water supported debt and so I the percentage Yeah. Yeah. It's

well I guess that's it's still still general obligation. We're talking about the tax impact, but given that you're growing rapidly, your equalized value, even though your landlock grows significantly, that gap over time still gets larger because it's 5% of your equalized value that's certified in August annually. Any questions from the board or people who are board members who are online?

Kevin, it's Sam. Sorry. Apologies, I joined late. I I just want to make sure I understand the the impact of this over the 20 years. Um Kayla, you said it was is it the $1,145.15 that's on the I think it's page 31 in the packet, correct? That's the tax levy impact. This does not model utility rate impacts. Yep. And we'll kind of talk about that at the next ag end agenda item, but that is the average impact over those 20 years to the average taxpayer on a $685,000 home.

Okay, you answered my second question, which was is this just the levy piece of that or is it also including the utilities? Um, the other question I have is this is only the impact of the 2026 issue, correct? This is not including 2028s on this schedule. So that would be a separate impact but also mitigated in some ways by things that fall off in that year if you figure the debt comes on and falls off over time.

Correct. And if you kind of look back to that FMP presentation that granted that 26 changed in a little bit, but you can get a good idea of where the next three debt issuances are going to put you on a capacity analysis and on a property tax impact analysis. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Okay, any other questions, trustees or members of the public interested in municipal finance and how we're borrowing more money than we've ever borrowed before? Uh, with that, I would entertain motion number two. You like to make the biggest motion in the history of motions bay?

I mean, I feel bad that Trusty Deman's not here. I feel like this was says Super Bowl. Um, I move that the village board adopt resolution number 3199, a resolution authorizing the issuance and establishing parameters for the sale of not to exceed $14,445,000 in general obligation notes series 2026A. Thank you. Do I have a second? I'll second. Thank you, Jay. Any further discussion hearing? None. All those in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? Let's see. Terra, I didn't hear. I did say I.

Okay. Thank you. Uh, any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. All right. Moving on to more of the Kayla show. Um, uh, discussion action on authorizing staff to submit a public service commission conventional rate case application. I'll let you just jump right into it.

Sounds good. I am going to introduce Bridget Gizbers from our office. Bridget joined Ellers back in the fall after coming from Rubikert Milky where she did similar work um and then also a long career at the Wisconsin Public Service Commission reviewing water rates. So we are happy to have some internal expertise on completing these applications. Bridget did work with staff to complete this application. Um I'm presenting today so she can kind of see how I presented and get to learn these types of ropes. Um but we are here today to present you with the results of the um conventional rate application and then gain consensus on filing this application. Go to the next slide. We were here in August to present the utility cash flow analysis and at that time we projected a rate adjustment that was yeah around 22% I believe it was um to really fund ongoing operations capital projects and to cover associated debt service. We're authorized to proceed in November with phase two. And since November, we have been working with staff to garner all of the information that's needed for the um application and complete that application and present it to to you here tonight. Um, there's something I was going to mention, but um, oh, what I was going to mention was your last rate increase, if you look at the next slide, was filed in November of 2020 and at that time was about a 15.5% increase. So, no significant changes to water rates in the last 6 years. um you filed a simplified case which is really just an inflationary adjustment of 3% um that took effect in December of 2025 or so all of those interested in learning that the village has not essentially touched interest rates or um user rates in water utility in six years. So that's a lot of inflation that's entirely COVID era um and kind of um aging infrastructure on top of that that are being built into

this rate increase and kind of those projections moving forward. The initial results um that we've updated here uh are both on a cash basis and a utility basis. And if you remember back to the financial management plan we presented over the summer, we talked about a cash accounting basis versus the utility basis. And unfortunately, the PSC takes a look at the utility basis, making sure that you're not only recovering your operation and maintenance expenses and your pilot payments, but you're also recovering your annual accumulated depreciation on your assets and then also a rate of return. Um, one of the more significant changes that you'll see that has the dispar discrepancies between what we presented back in August and what you're seeing here tonight is the benchmark rate of return changed. PSC um adjusts the benchmark rate of return on an annual basis and when we completed the analysis over the summer it was 6.2% and now it is 6.4%. Um that is basically oh

oh I'm screen sharing is paused

what's it say stop sharing it does say village is talking I think you can resume yeah that play button the right below there you go there you go you're we're good we still have participants I think you can X out of that too. Okay. Danger.

So on a cash basis, basically just recovering what you're spending on an annual year for ONM and pilot and debt payments and any cash funded capital, there's no real significant need for a rate increase. But when we build depreciation and then a rate of return back on that, that's where we kind of get the disparency between kind of our traditional accounting methods and how the PSSE is going to look at the math. We call it PSSE math. Um, and so really understanding that this is primarily a catchup from 2020 to 2026. Um, the PSC does not allow you to preemptively raise rates for capital or debt. Um, it's really all reactionary. And so this is a test year 26 case which is based off of your 2026 budget. We've made a number of adjustments to that based off of your 2025 annual report. That also plays into um some of the discrepancy between what we showed you in August and here today. But at the end of the day um the application results kind of flush out a 28303% increase to base user rates right now. We've updated our cash flow analysis on the next page. um with that and get an understanding of where we are kind of um phasing in water rates here and there as well as when we can project our next conventional case. Um we will always recommend utilizing simplified rate increases as much as you absolutely can um because they are very quick turnaround by the PSC and that they kind of keep up with inflation that 3% annually. um simplified rates or simplified increase percentages will change um depending on the PSC, but it's been pretty stable for the last two years um at that 3%. And so understanding that you do have significant capital projects upcoming in the water utility and that we will have to adjust rates for the for them. So we're kind of projecting another conventional case in 30 and 33. That hasn't changed from what we showed you um back over the summer. Um, but as we kind of evolve our CIP and get an

understanding of what those actual costs are, we will update this. But know that this is kind of the start of multi-year rate increases to fund a lot of that CIP that is coming. And these kind of annual positives and negative net asset cash flow that you see on the bottom, it's because you are by annual issuer. So you're borrowing in one year for two years of projects and spending them down. So I'm not concerned about the cash flow piece of it. understanding that that's all related to your debt borrowing schedule. The next um chart is the water impact analysis and is probably what most people care about and the most beneficial of this all is what does this mean for the average consumer of water you on the water side. And so currently um your water rates are $2.52 um on your Volometric charge or 100 cubic feet along with your public uh fire protection and quarterly meter charges. Implementing a 28.03% 03% increase in 2027 will have roughly a $91.74% annual change to an average consumer um on the water side which is 100 cubic feet um per quarter. And so we've built that out quarterly and annually and so then we kind of carry that forward to what does that mean as affordability and we measure that as a percentage of household median income. Village Fishbay has an MHI of $155,000, let's call it, and there is a benchmark of per uh given forward by the American Waterworks Association that affordability should be measured as roughly 2% per utility of MHI. So even at this maximum, if we kind of phase in all these water rates, the maximum we get is 1.18% of MHI and that is not until 2033. So you are still still roughly 50% of quote unquote affordability on the water

utility rate side. Um and so while we're looking at these pretty significant increases over the next 9 to 10 years, we're really looking at over this planning period between 2025 is when this base analysis starts and 2035 um we'll have a $454 impact on the average rate payer. um and have oh sorry the change over prior year will be about $518 um in total and so while on paper they look large the reality of the impact on your average residential consumer is very affordable over the planning period which is 10 years the next question we get a lot is well where does that put us in relation to our other neighbors and so we have put a comparison in this is all regulated water utilities within Milwaukee county. Um, and the big asterisk I will put here is this does not include Shorewood's most recent approved increase. And so Shorewood's most recent approved increase will most likely make them the largest water utility or second largest um or high charging water utility, but currently um White Fish Bay rates are near the bottom. Um obviously you haven't had a rate case in six years. You had the conventional case that happened in 25. Um, and this will put you towards the middle or upper of the middle pack of um, utilities within the county. Um, we expect to see more regular and larger uh, utility rate increases particularly within Milwaukee County moving forward whether we do them or not because of LSL requirements and the debt and associated funding with those. Um, and so some utilities have been proactive on doing that and some utilities are just starting to get into that. But you've see Franklin hasn't had a water increase since 2016. Oak Creek 2017. Um so outside of those two, you were the um oldest community or

with the oldest established rates in the county outside of those two. Can I ask why why is Milwaukee Waterworks on the chart three times? Because I'm sure it's um there are three classes that they serve. Are they all of the same industrial and commercial or something? Well, they are on here three times, but it Yeah, this is data we pulled from the PSC. So, I will have to let the PSC know. But this column is filtered by the 12,000galon column. That makes sense to you? Yep.

Okay. And then the last chart is just our recommendations moving forward. We are recommending that we file the conventional rate case application as soon as possible to get the ball rolling. Um, this is going to take a number of months. Um, they're going to audit our application for 2 to 3 months. We're going to have some data requests that are going to go back and forth between us and the PSC and the village. Um, we'll get then get to a point of scheduling a public hearing which could be expected about five plus months from now. These are very um aggressive timelines. and then implementation within six months, most likely eight to nine months on the implementation side. Um I had a case I filed in July of last year that's just going to public hearing in May. Um and so it is taking an extraordinary amount of time for the PSC to get through water rate applications. My hope is that we are if we can file in May, we are still be on the early end because the deadline to file an application is July 31st. um and so that we can kind of beat that summer rush in and get your case in front of them so we can have rates still implemented close to the end of the year. Um and then it's just also best practice to start notifying or putting public information out there that this is happening so we don't get to a public hearing and everyone is shocked and surprised. Um you are only legally required to um notify your customers of a rate increase once the public hearing is scheduled. Um but we can provide you some suggested language should you want to start communicating with your customers about the process and what is coming forward.

Yeah. Can we also I mean this is more for staff and that's um to create some pretty charts and graphs about our about um the inflation rate and our lack of um increasing rates every year just so that it makes sense. I mean, people are going to look at a 28% rate increase and they're going to say, "What are you guys doing?" And you can kind of explain that away with a chart saying, "Hey, we didn't increase rates for six years." Yeah. Um,

and I think you're, you know, in not my anecdotal thing is you're going to have some benefit that this has been discussed in your area because of Shorewood's case because Shorewoods is actually a two-step case, which is very unique that they're receiving authorization to do two rate increases. one is 26% and the other is 38%. Um, and so this is going to be familiar language to at least some people in your community that have been paying attention to that. Um, but it's at least beneficial to get out on the front end so that we don't get to a public hearing and it blows up at the public hearing. Is is it is it best practice to not do a slow roll of increase versus what is in front of us tonight.

You can't you can't phase this in. It's like an all or nothing approach.

I'm sorry. I'm I I I I think I misspoke. to do is it cuz you showed in the chart that we're the third or fourth oldest, you know, when it, you know, or least recent when it comes to a request to the PSC. I guess my question and this could be for staff as much as it is for you, but why is that a is that a good thing? because all the I mean like President Buckley was saying the the the the wow factor is going is going to hit and could we have done something sooner like a smaller increase request three years ago and then again now?

I understand your question and the answer is yes. you could have utilized those simplified rate increases which are your kind of inflationary adjustment. You are able to capitalize on those I believe after your new rates have been in forced for a year. So you could have had 21 22 23 24 you did utilize one in 25, right?

Um it would help eat into this rate increase but it's not going to make it unavoidable. Um that's really just keeping up with the cost of inflation. the utility's been able to manage it whether through um naturally increasing rates as people are using not increasing rates but consumption increased revenue um flat maintenance expenses but now you are faced with these significant projects which every utility is faced with and now that's why you're starting to see these more significant and larger increases um and that's why I say we've built into our rate model projections utilizing those simplifies every year because that will really help eat into a rate increase, but it's not going to make large increases unaffordable when we're talking about borrowing 89 million for specific utility projects because that's just not keeping up with the cost of debt service.

Perfect. if there is a way for us and as President Buckley alluded to as close to a layman's explanation as possible because I don't uh I there is a spider right there. Um uh I I don't want there to be the wow factor and I don't want our answer to be well we're not sure what um get it whiffed. Um, so I mean just whatever we can do to decrease the the wow factor that you know that we just saw a lot of people unhappy about in the April election referring to the referendum. I just I there there's been so much wow factor in in in Whitefish Bay over the last year that I I don't I want I want us prepared for it as opposed to not. Jamie.

Yeah. I think I just want to add two things to what Kayla was saying. I think the one thing is we were operating under the market basket for a really long time. So, we were keeping everything under 2 and a half% for everybody and we had two pretty hefty storm increases during that time. So, we were trying to manage the utility bill as a whole and not just necessarily the water impact. So I think both of those are also important things

and all part of our all part of our information campaign because I I uh you're absolut you're absolutely right especially when it comes to the to the storm water part of it. So um I I just I'm I'm we'll figure something out.

Yes, you have time. I mean, you're I you're five months, I think, before we're going to have even approval to move forward that they've audited our application. And so, there's time to figure these things out in the messaging and how what format that is in. Um, we just recommend you start communicating in whatever fashion because, um, public hearings have gotten a little unruly. the administrative law judge um has just kind of let anybody speak at any time and a lot of them are resulting in sending it back to commission for review and that then restarts this whole process and we've now burned a year and a half because residents and rateayers weren't prepared or didn't know that a larger increase was coming. And by no means is this earthshatteringly large. Um we we have some increases that are three digits um 110 105% increases for some utilities. Um but I think to make the process smoother um there is some literature then we can provide some language to start communicating this with rateayers and you can only make them pay much as attention as they're going to pay um but at least some public information.

I have a strange question. I'm sorry, really quick, Sam. I'm sorry. I have a very strange question. Um, are each of the PSC public hearings individual? Like in is each case? Yes. Okay. Cuz we So we wouldn't be lumped in with another municipality or we energy or anything. Correct. They're all individual and they're actually held before an administrative law judge. Okay. Thank you. Sorry. Thank you.

No, no. I I was just going to chime in, Jay. I think you're spot on with how we communicate this being very important and I guess to me when I look at this these are extraordinary increases that are above the pace of inflation. So even as we phase in and and Kayla is our maximum ability on a simplified case 3% is it zero or 3% basically you can go zero or that whatever that rate is or how does that work? Yes and no. Um, if you can prove a case that you don't need the maximum simplified, um, you they could try to seek approval. It's kind of a gray area with the PSC. Um,

I don't think I'd necessarily recommend it knowing what you guys have coming forward. Yeah. Can't go over. You can't

you can't go over. That was that was really what I was getting at. So even if we pass 3% every year, which is kind of a proxy for market inflation, we still expect in 2030 a 30 plus% increase. So even if we do our own kind of smoothing in, there's such large increases and I I think it's just it's the effect of having, you know, federal mandates ultimately to to change these things. So, we just have to communicate that and I think we have to communicate that we've done that affordability analysis and we're going to keep looking at that over time. I think that's really important um that we've done that work and that we just continue to refine that as we go through the the next decade.

Yeah. I also just want to add I think it's important as much as we're able to educate people that the PSC governs util water utility rates and there there are a lot of things I would do differently if we had flexibility and we just don't um so they they govern everything um and it in a lot of ways is what it is um which is painful even the rate of return makes no sense for a government entity we energies or other groups sure um but we have to go by those rules Kelsey is 100% correct. Have a chance to say it, say it.

Yeah, absolutely. There are statutory guidelines and then there's PSSE interpretation of those guidelines which come into play. Um, but I think the consensus is that, and this is why we present these for action, is that once you set submit the application or authorize to submit the application, it is completely out of your hands at what the PSC is going to do with it. Um, given that Bridget is our resident expert, I would not anticipate significant changes. Um, but they sometimes happen. And so that's really to put forward to you all tonight is we're just authorizing the submitt of the application. We are projecting forward based off of all the information that the village has provided us along with our expertise in the area what it's going to be, but they could change one way that they look at depreciation or one project and it will have a significant change on that. Um, again, not anticipating to happen, but just to reinforce what Kelsey is saying, there is less control than you would have in any other situation when the PSC becomes involved. Um, the only thing you can do is keep up with those simplifies and then hope that our debt service estimates are high and we can come in with a lower in a future rate increase. But it, yeah, it's out of your control.

Kayla, what would drive an increase in the benchmark rate of return? Are there any economic metrics or things that we can look at to inform that? I'm also wondering if there's things that would bring that down over time. CO brought it down to like 4.2% so it's still going to be there. Um, it's been relatively stable between 6.2 and 65.5% leading to COVID and after COVID. I personally have no idea how they come up with the benchmark rate of return. It's and what's what's the impact? So going from 6.2 to 6.4 what what's the rate impact of that roughly? I think it was like a percent. 1%.

Yeah. In your specific in our case. So what the they take a look at the value of your asset in the ground as a whole. It's called your net investment rate base. So it's all of the value of your asset. Then they apply the 6.4% 4% to that and that is what they're expecting you to make as your revenue or your profit on the utility and that's a bad word but that's kind of lame in terms your return. Yeah.

Can argue for a lesser rate of return. We have been successful in it. I don't recommend it in your case because it's just going to make the next rate case worse. um because your your margins are going to slim and then when they go back they're going to say well you should have taken the 6.4% then now it's 6.5% and you have to take it and make up all that kind of gap. So I would save that for the next one. Yeah, if we're going to go down that road, I don't think this is the time to do it either. I agree.

Correct. And when we do regular cash flow updates as part of the FMP, should you authorize those, we'll take a look at these projections annually and really time rate increases along with I know in multiple communities. I know you here too kind of timing if we're expecting a large storm sewer increase or sewer increase in one year kind of delaying a water rate increase or vice versa. We don't want to slam on rate payers at the same time on everything. Um, and so there's a lot of strategy that can go in, but the timing of a rate case is as about much control you have over the process.

Just just one more clarifying question too. In the affordability analysis, the the income you used versus the utility rate scaling up, did you hold that income static or did you increase that with kind of wage inflation? I held it static. Okay. Okay. So, it's a pretty conservative affordability analysis. In theory, if wages go up a little bit, that correct that may look even better. I think it it's just percentages on a page. It doesn't help the rateayer who's seeing the increase. But I think it's helpful for us to keep in mind, too, just that again that that's a really important thing for us to keep focused on that affordability. So,

okay. Thanks. I think one of the more important questions is um how do we retroactively blame Paul Baining for this? Oh, don't worry. I blame him for everything. All right. As long as that's on somebody's agenda, that'd be great. Uh any further questions? Send him the video of this meeting. Here I go. You don't even need to send that. You know, we all we all we all blame him. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Not all. Hey. Oh, Paul has one defender. Oh, wow. Make a motion. See where it goes. Let's do that. Motion number three. Anybody?

I move that the village board authorize staff to submit a public service commission conventional rate case application. Thank you. Do I have a second? Second. Second. Thank you. We'll give it to Sam because of the delay in internet stuff. Uh any further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Okay. Thanks, K. See you. We're just kidding about that Paul stuff. Are we? Well, all right. We're partially kidding. Partially kidding. He's a big He's a quitter in our minds. Manage just did a rate increase and it was much larger than that. So, okay. I got the same building.

All right. Number four, discussion action on the Cl Warminghouse Architect Contract Award. Matthew, take

I'll tee things up. Um, so it's a good tie-in to our last couple discussions related to the 26 through31 capital improvement plan. So one of the more notoriable items within the CIP is the village board um approved 1.5 million to replace um the Cody Park warming house. And this has been a discussion item for the last couple meetings in order to have village staff develop an RFP with the overarching big boulders as far as the goals, the vision, what the quality park warming house should have as far as a functionality um some other direction in order to develop that request for proposals. So after the village board meeting, village staff developed this RFP and put that out on the street. Um and with that we had five firms that had shown interest and had submitted their RFP proposals that are um links within the memo that you are more than happy to click on to see the five submitts. Um within the RFP there was uh criteria that village staff had used to go through the ranking process including responsiveness for the statement of work value added services experience qualifications and references and uh cost to the village. So when you add up all those different rankings and the criteria it total of 100. So after we received those, we internally ranked them with the three individual village staff members and we invited the top three ranked firms to be in interviewed by a village staff. So after those interviews last week that we had uh we completed the reference checks on the top ranked firm and unanimously agreed that Grath Design Group is our recommended uh architectural firm to lead in the process for the Kodi Park warming house. Uh within the packet is

their actual RFP proposal as well as some exhibits and designs of other similar park related uh projects um that really spoke to us. So, we were really impressed with the interview that we had with the Grath uh design group last week and felt that not only from an architectural firm with their design capabilities and similar project size and scope, also equally as important to my belief is their ability to lead the public engagement part because this is going to be one of those uh projects going that's going to have a lot of eyes, ears, a lot of thoughts going through that process. We want to make sure the community is heard throughout the survey and all that other good stuff. So we feel that they have the capabilities to lead that process as well. So with that in front of the village board is a recommendation for the proposal in the amount of 94,500 for both design as well as construction site. So we invited members of the groth design group to be here to give a fivem minute overview of their firm and answer any questions on behalf of the village board.

Add her up.

You can use the table if you'd like. There's three of us and two chairs here and one up chairs here. That'd be awesome. Oh, absolutely. Thank you. Actually, we Oh, yeah. We um we were given these by our village staff, so I'll just put them right there for you. Terrific.

Well, thank you. First of all, we're really excited. We're really happy to be here. We thoroughly enjoyed our interview conversation with Kelsey and Maxine and Matthew and we're really happy to hear that we are the recommended firm. So, we have five minutes. Um, you can do a deep dive with the proposal that you have in front of you, but I want to just give a a brief overview and talk about a little bit about our design process. That sheet that's passed around is uh what was created for our interview. It's not inside the proposal. So that's why we had an extra sheet that we brought along with us. Uh my name is Jean Casey. I'm director of business development at Growth Design Group. I'm not an architect. Here with me is Mike McGra, one of our partners. We have three partners at Growth Design Group. And Dan Conzel and Dan's your project manager project. You might notice in your proposal that the project lead doesn't look anything like Mike McGrad because your project lead is actually Peter Damsguard and he couldn't be here tonight because he's presenting at H Heartland Village for a project that's going forward at H Heartland and he couldn't get out of that to come here. So Mike's

more important than we just or are you better maybe better. We I think we told them on Thursday about this. So we're we said we'd give them a pass. We wouldn't warm up too much.

Yeah. We Right. And that it's not that it's more important. It's farther along. It's much farther along. In fact, it was in the business journal and this time stay. It just got some press today that we're kind of excited about. But yeah, of course not. It's not more important. Um so a little bit about growth design group. Our firm is 32 years old. Um, we have 40-ish people in three different offices, Walkers Point, Cedarberg, and Appleton. We have a variety of markets. The firm started with religious work 32 years ago and then quickly grew into education because we did schools attendant to the parishes we were working with. Uh, healthc care is a current large focus group of focus area of the firm. senior and supportive living, corporate right now that's pretty much TI work around downtown and community. And community is a market that's dear to our hearts. This project is dear to our hearts for a couple of reasons. Selfishly, my kids were Cumberland Cougars and went to school through the middle school and high school. Uh more pertinent, we're doing uh work in Whitefish Bay currently and we'd love to continue to serve the village. Uh Pete Damsgard, who's not here, was the lead design for um Stone Creek, which has become such a terrific community hub. Uh Episcopal Church right up the street from Cody uh Christ Church Episcopal. Um our Savior, wait, I always forget our Savior Lutheran on um Santa Monica and a little bit of work above Fox Bay for for New Land as well. Our mission at Growth Design Group is to listen, lead, serve. It's been our mission from the very beginning. They aren't just words. We we uh deliver all of our project solutions under that mission. Um we not only work with our client groups that way, but we like to work with each other that way. It's very

important that we pause, listen to what the needs of the project is are, excuse me. Um develop gentle guided solutions with expertise and then deliver that that implementation at the end. Um the process sheet that you see in front of you Pete created because with this project the um this project scope sections kind of neatly fell under listen, lead, serve. We talked quite a bit with um Kelsey and Maxine and Matthew about our public engagement. And for our project teams, it's really part and parcel of how we deliver our work from the get-go. whether it's a small church community, a very large public uh school district, uh hospital work, our our supportive living work, really across almost all of our markets, uh we've had to have that ability to bring a variety of opinions to the table and eventually have an agreed upon solution. It's not always easy, but we're good at it. We've been doing it for a really long time. Um, Kelsey said at one point during the interview when we were talking about some public engagement, I think we surprised you. We thought we were going to bring it up a little bit sooner than the initial idea and a lot of these things will be ironed out in the kickoff and we learned exactly what your goals are for the project, but thought it would be fun and articulated that a little bit in the handout that we would um have some public engagement prior to those three designs being developed. Then maybe I think it was a cool idea that Pete had. Let's have a kids sharette where so we'd invite some kids either in the neighborhood or however you would decide what that kid population would be or age group to come in and have uh some fun activities to obviously not follow exactly what they

are suggesting the design be but have um some public input. Um, on the more serious side, when community members have very real opinions, for example, if there is going to be a bshell, where is it going to be? What is it going to look like? Um, those early discussions really support a transparent process. So, uh, naysayers can be flated at the end. Listen, talked about this, you were there, you know, in so many words, obviously. Um, but that first step in the handout is, and I should pull that up in front of me as well. um are those community engagement processes. During the lead section is really the um design development for lack of a better word where we um define program early on create the se the uh design development exact direction eventually create the CGS and deliver the project at the end. Um

I think if I were to jump in on the on the listen part and the community engagement very seldom like 98% of the time kind of making up percentage but high percentage that we will not design until we hear. So we some folks will go out and you know try to create something that but we haven't heard you um haven't heard the community. So that's what we kind of live and breathe by. Um yeah. I think it was said, you know, part of glad we were invited to come today to some of it's just it's partnership and to know each other and that's very important to us that we so thank you for all you guys hope

in some some areas we'll have uh some of the programming pieces appear to be done. You know, there's ice skating is not going away. The tennis courts aren't going. You know, there are specific things that we'll that we know out of the gate unless something's going on, which you could be. I shouldn't say that if you that we don't do anything. It's a bit of an inside joke you want to stay on. Yep. Far far away. It's the it's the third rail of whiteish bay politics. Just forget about we what we just Yeah.

Can I ask real fast? I know here uh under listen you have youth engagement and I want to say about three months ago we had a young student who come and gave a very professional uh presentation about what CL could look like. Um would you be open to hearing that presentation because I think obviously not all the youth are youth presented there but Pete's Pete listened to it. Oh yeah she was specifically referenced in three of the proposals as my memory. She was invited to one of their offices. is I can't remember if it was yours. Um, but there was a lot of people were impressed and so I know that he was talking about giving her a special role in that process as well. Yeah.

Everyone was as impressed as we were. I told him that we we get first dibs on hiring her though. But do you have any questions for us or for Dan, your project manager? Yeah. I don't Pete who's not here. will relay anything to piece that. I don't have any questions in that, you know, we're we're this is the first inning. Um I'm just so excited for this project. It has been a long

uh process for me to, you know, move folks to the realization that that the building is awful and we need to just raise it and start fresh and and then, you know, going through a CIP process where we recognized, you know, the holes in our um park systems. And so I'm I'm just I'm I'm thrilled that we're, you know, getting into the first inning. And yeah, I can't wait to see some drawings. Great.

Can I ask a question? Um, in the proposal, it requested 92,500 um lump sum plus uh recommendation of a $2,000 for reimburseables. So, given that we're requesting tonight 94,500, um I assume we are going to be adding in that $2,000 for reimburseables. Can you just describe to me what sort of reimburseables that would cover? And then could I also ask you to speak into the mic? We have two trustes remaining. That's okay. I think it's just hard to hear. Is that better? Better. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Or maybe hold it close. Okay. Um Yeah, we can hear you on the phone. Thank you, Kelsey.

Perfect. Yeah, the reimburseables is it's it's a statistic that we use at $2,000 is so what is it for? Um any printing that we need to do used to be a bigger deal 10 years ago and but a lot of it's digital now. um any mileage between office and you know say to the site um but again we're really close. Yeah. Um so um any uh fees that if we have to submit to for permitting um send our drawings in that would cover be under that umbrella. It's not a whole lot with a project like this. Um so yeah at the end of the day and it's what we say is not to exceed. Yeah.

So allow up to 2,000. So if we spend it's all open book and spend 1,500 we don't spend 2,000 the 500 just isn't spent. I have a question. So we're kind of designing to a budget. So like we have plugged public we just passed you know plugs in a million five for this project essentially for the on the high end. Have you ever had any experience doing fundraising or anything like that to kind of add to the pot? Is that within any of your business plans? Have you ever talked about doing that or any thoughts here on doing something like that? Yeah. No, go ahead. I rotate the mic.

Honestly, mostly with nonprofit clients, of which we have many of 43% of our work is with nonprofit groups. So, yeah, loads of experience with fundraisers. Are we uh we're not fundraising consultants. We certainly understand how the process works and can hopefully maybe come up with some creative ideas if if needed. um everything from what do you like let's say you're going out to an outside fundraiser and I'm completely making this up because we haven't listened to anything but let's say you want a a bandshell and perhaps um Mr. Mr. Jones and White Fishbay wants it to be Miss the Jones family, right?

Band shell. What we would talk with you about is preparing a packet for you to take if if that's the direction, prepare a packet for you to take around to certain potential donors, which would include rationale uh transparency of how you got there and then pretty pictures to show

what that would be. That can be kind of tricky. the pretty pictures can be kind of tricky because you don't want to go too far because it hadn't hasn't been designed yet. You don't know how much money you're getting yet. Um often, you know, you run the risk of saying, "Well, we don't need the Taj Mahal, you know, what are you giving me this for down to you want $5 million for this?" So, you know, we're careful about what those renderings look like. But, yeah, we do it all the time for nonprofit. Well, I think I think one idea is like as a part of, you know, we do a really good job on our emails and it's read by a lot of people. What if we add something in the next weeks where we say we pass this, you know, we're open potentially to any donations. if anyone's interested, they can reach out to whomever to kind of help set the stage because then at that point, if you're early on the process, you know what dollars you have to work with, if any, you can design around that where you don't want to design a five, excuse me, you want to design a $5 million building and then realize we can't raise three and a half million, for example. Just Well, and then the I'm there with you. The next question is, what do you think of our budget? you know, is it an appropriate budget for the the building that you've been kind of tasked to create?

Yeah, Pete and I talked even just this morning and I think the the 1.5 even considering what we call FFN, not a whole lot in the call the bathrooms, but furniture, fixtures, equipment. Um, in today's day, I think a dollars per square foot is you're on you're on. And I think conservative. That being said, I could I could see what if there was a donor or two who came in and said, right, you know, I want to sponsor your band shell, right? And and and then you'd almost need like a second level of improvements where you'd say, "Oh, well, in that case, we can make it nicer and put more lights on or whatever you guys would think of."

We field so many donations for the next park bench or Yeah. I mean, I I I don't want to get involved in like $100 donations, but you know, if somebody wants to come and sponsor something for 50 grand and Yeah. would that be under the listen or after the listen session where we would probably want to do that so we get an idea of like everyone wants a movie screen and uh we have to raise another x amount.

I I don't know. As part of the RFP, I know we outlined that you needed to stay within the budget, but if there were desires outside of that to kind of denote those additional costs, so that way the board could make an informed decision. So, I wonder when was kind of I'd call them change orders normally, but those additional projects that are out of scope come forward and maybe those could be packaged. The other idea that I I hadn't really thought through that was mentioned at least during a few interviews was the idea of a separate band shell. Uh because logistically with bathrooms, people aren't wanting to walk usually behind the stage. You might be able to orientate it a bit better if it's separate and that might have additional costs as well um that you know the board may want to end up considering.

Yeah. And I I think in a in a perfect world as we see it that the change order part of it is that call it that listening stage up to that lead stage or that design development stage because then you know our process is listen get those pictures out there get what the uh the form of the building's going to look like and then we're starting to detail it to build it basically. Now, do we pivot all the time on little little changes? 100%. Um, we're a company that doesn't focus on uh necessarily by an hour or two if we need to make an adjustment to make your project better. 100%. Right? You add another building onto the building, then we have a we just have an open honest conversation that that's going to take more effort. But um I think really if again if we're asking the direct question and answering it,

it's in and maybe right after that listening phase or that early concept phase is where we'd love to have it set, but right, how we how are you how are we going to turn down a $50,000 donation. We're going to figure out how to add that into the project, right? Or whatever that may be. I think Tara had her hand up. Yeah,

I did. I just one caution. I just want to be sure that whatever we're doing, the village I and I appreciate and obviously um welcome public input and definitely donations. I just want to be sure that the village is maintaining control over what is exactly happening in that building. So, it's just more of a caution than anything else. We've learned about that recently. I'd like to say hopefully we that's where you're hiring us or recommending to hire us. We can help lead you through that process. Right. Exactly.

Know if we're giving you answers, you know, you put it on us, right? Or this is the reasoning behind it. We're we're uh educating you as we go through so that you have the right answers back. I mean, you already saw we're quick to blame our former village manager. I know really anything. So, you know, you just we would have blamed you, you know,

and that's something we uh articulate in those really early kickoff sessions to the for the decision makers that you uh do you want to create a building committee or a smaller key stakeholder group? Is it the entire board? And similarly, when we do open up to the public, want to have some like control there too. How public do you want to be? You might not want opinions from every quarter of Whitefish Bay, you know, and so those things will be talked about in the early meetings as well.

Uh any members of the public interested in speaking? Just wanted to make sure we covered that. Any further trustee comments? In which case, I would entertain motion number four. I move that the village board a order the Cody Park warming house design and construction administration contract to growth design group in the amount of $94,500 as outlined in the meeting packet. Thank you. Do I hear a second? I'll second. I'm g to Brian. Um any further discussion hearing? None. All those in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you.

Did I say that right? It is growth not growth. Appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Growth or growth? It's growth. Growth. Growth with no W. And we should just have that in all of our materials. You're not alone. Everybody says growth. But thanks. You put the phonetic spelling on the logo somehow. All right. Good to see you. Thank you. Thank you. Our last item of the night will be discussion action on ordinance 1925 amending municipal code 10 regulating recycling. Oh, Maxine, is this your debut? We had a presentation by Maxine at the village boards. Public works. Yes.

I can't I can't believe Matt hasn't just made her do everything. Anyway, I mean, hey Matt, good at delegating. You're on.

Okay, perfect. Okay, so for the recycling ordinance update, this was um excuse me. Um this was due to the DNR revising their administrative code um which governs municipal recycling programs and their update to their administrative code took place on July 1st of last year and that revision requires that all municipalities or responsible units um which we are to update their ordinance to align with their changes before April 30th um of this month. Um to meet this requirement, the ordinances are proposed to update in chapter 10 of our municipal code. And um basically it cleans I'll give a summary. It cleans up a lot of the definitions. Some of them were not clear. Um provides clarification. Some of them weren't enforceable by the DNR. Um okay. So I can go through a few of the updates. So, one of them was that our educational updates, our educational materials that we put out into the public now has to include the landfill ban on on oil filters and absorbance. Um, just like Yeah. Um, we also updated our definition of yard waste to include um grass clippings, leaves, brush, woody vegetative material. Um, so that's a little bit more specific. We updated our definition of a multifamily dwelling. Previously, it was a five plus unit building and now it's a 4 plus unit building. Um, and originally we

we interpreted that to mean that we would need to collect um recycling from four four unit buildings. Um, but after meeting with the DNR, they seemed a amend amendable to um alternate collection agreements because their goal is to have everybody be able to recycle um which we do. So, and this doesn't impact garbage collection because I know that was a note that we got near your place about it was it was garbage though. It wasn't recycling. It was waste management and garbage. Yeah. I don't believe I don't believe they collect recycling either though.

I think it's both. But that is on our list to to review and this kind of teed that up so that we have a better understanding of it. Um but specifically with this it's recycling. Yeah, it's it's just recycling. I I think this deserves a round of applause. I mean, I I never understood why we never why we not would not allow grass clippings in a lawn bag and how many fights that created was just I mean I think it's a great I think it's a great addition personally and I think people put lawn clippings in there anyways. I mean it's it was it made no sense to me whatsoever and I'm glad the DNR updated their their their information and I'm glad we are as well. I think it makes a lot of sense. Yeah. So

that should be that should be a headline on the next week's email. You're not you're not wrong allowed to put lawn in your lawn bags. Um yeah, going off of that, previously it wasn't super specific. For example, it'd be like yard and garden debris, but yeah, what if you have leaves in your garden or right grass in your yard? Um didn't specify that.

And Maxine and I didn't speak directly, but I talked to Anna a couple of times over the weekend and today. And what you're going to approve tonight is uh a draft that isn't complete yet, but you'll you'll approve it as you do with many motions where it's subject to final review by the village attorney, maybe public works, and then agreement by the the the manager. No, no, no. It's I'm not saying it it's going back. I'm saying work together.

You would look at it. You would look at it, give it a thumbs up. Um it's uh and because we're incorporating a lot of the stuff that the uh that the DNR has now created their own definitions and whatnot. And um they're doing it in every community. I'm doing the same thing in in Bayside right now. Um but the key is to just give that give that staff approval so we can finish it up.

Why didn't the DNR allow it before the grass clippings? Um, it could have been due to um they probably wanted proper disposal of gl of grass clippings because I know um there's a there's a naturally occurring chemical in the grass clippings. Um and I know that comes up when they don't want the grass to go into the sewer. Um so maybe they have a proper way to dispose of the grass. Um that would be my best guess. they can do much larger scale uh uh mulching, what what do you call it? Composting

than than we're used to doing. And the better the technology gets in that uh the more they can do, more they can handle. Can I I don't want to interrupt. If you're still presenting, I would That's okay. Um so this has to be done by April 30th. Do we have to notify the DNR or is this just uh on your honor? Um, so we submit an annual report to the DNR. Um, that annual report gets us approximately approximately $67,000 a year. Okay. What's it called? A recycling grant is maybe the term you've heard. And so this is a requirement to receive those funds.

So we're happy to do it. the the actual change from five unit collection to fourunit is impactful and something that gave us a little bit of pause and so we are going to work with the DNR about if there are certain sites where a dumpster for recycling and a dumpster for trash is working well um then we want to be able to continue that partnership um specifically we we've heard feedback from Glendale where they have these four units and it's a lot of recycling bins and trash bins both on a congested site as well as at the curb of the days of those collections. And so in some cases dumpsters do make sense um for both of those. And so we're going to work with the DNR in some cases like we heard from the I think it was the 8 unit perhaps that isn't the best solution. And so we're going to try to figure out how much flexibility we have.

Sure. Any other questions, comments? Entertain motion number five. I move the village board approve ordinance number 1925 to amend sections 10-8 A through H and 10-12A and subject to review substitute review of the village subject to review of the village attorney. Thanks. Thank you. Do I hear a second? Second. Thank you, Anna. Uh any further discussion hearing? None. All those in favor say I. I. I.

I. Uh any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. All right. Last to do is move. Mr. President, giving it to Jay. Second. Can I give us get a second? Second. Thank you. Any further discussion? All those in favor say I. I. I. I. I don't care. These motion carries. We are journed. Thank you for sticking around everybody. Thanks everybody.