Village Board - Regular Meeting

All right. I will call to order the village board meeting of December 15th. Erin, could you call the role? Yes. Uh, Trusty Deman here. Trusty Saunders. Trusty Van Even Hovind here. Trusty Casper here. Trustee Saraban here. Trusty Hower here. And President Buffy

here. Thank you. Next is six items from the consent agenda. First, the minutes of the regular meeting, December 1st, the check register for November, the investment report for November 25. Uh, resolution 3193 adopting the Milwaukee County hazard mitigation plan. Um, the appointment of election inspectors for the period of January 1st, 2026 to December 31st, 2027. Uh, and finally, the acceptance of a bench donation from Larry Plaster in memory of Robert and Jenny Plaster for installation at Cody Park. Are there any questions, concerns? Hearing none, I'd entertain a motion to approve.

So moved. Thank you. Uh, Jay, do I hear a second? Second. Thank you, Tara. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. I You're looking at me. Uh report of the village officers. Uh we have excused uh village attorney Jacles tonight because I don't think we have any legal issues tonight. So next is village manager report. Right. Not a fun one this evening, but property tax bills have been mailed. Um those are also available online. I know we've received a few payments, so some are starting to get out there, but they don't seem to have hit mailboxes yet.

Indeed. just because we're have the public's ear for the moment. Um, always make sure that you read the insert that comes in the mail because right now I think a lot of folks are looking at the bill online and I I think the insert the tax insert is something we can find online. I'm not sure it's posted in a link somewhere. Um, but it explains all of the increases uh all of the increases per average house. Um, where does your money go, etc. And it's an important piece for public education. All right. Uh, village president report. I I don't have any report to do. We met so uh recently ago other than to wish everyone a uh happy holidays this week and and to stay safe. Stay safe. Uh, are there any miscellaneous trustees reports?

Nice. All right. We'll move on to petitions and 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. Do we have anyone who'd like to comment on anything not on the agenda? Looks like we have some US government students. Yes. Okay. Good meeting to go to. Uh all right. I will close the petition communications and move on to general business. We have six items tonight. The first is discussion action on ordinance 1921 to amend section one two of the municipal code pertaining to election wards and places of election.

All right. So the polling location for wards 7 9 and 11 has been at the Lidell Community Center. Um late last year the school district had approached the village um with the request that we explore alternative polling locations because they had some updated school safety standards that we need or all of us needed to adhere to. Um, so we spent this last year kind of exploring a number of different options within those wards as well as adjacent to those wards. And um, staff has been very um, impressed with Beayshore Lutheran. Um, the leadership there uh, is interested in hosting us. Uh, their facility meets all the ADA as well as the Wisconsin Election Commission requirements. Um, so we are recommending that we move the polling locations for those wards 7, 9, and 11 to Beayshore Lutheran. Uh that change would be communicated through postcards that would be mailed directly to all of the addresses within those wards as well as multiple times through all of our primary and typical communication channels such as the newsletter website uh and social media.

Uh can we also maybe get a sign at Lidell on the days of the election to say yes please please you are in the wrong place today. Um any other questions? We've this is probably the third meeting we've had on the subject. So I think it is not it is unsurprising that we are uh we don't have many questions about this. The the one comment I'd question I have is are are we always locked into having 12 wards? Is that is that something that we always have?

We've had them since I believe it was 1991. um might believe that's when it went up to 12. It might have been in the 80s. 80s or 90s it's been 12 wards. It it kind of t breaks out the number of voters to kind of even out besides WS five and six which is just one reporting unit. Everywhere else has two reporting units. Kind of keeps the geographically and the number of voters relatively similar. Yeah. I mean it would it would be interesting if we had four wards and then you just nobody would need to look at their

so votes where yeah we combined words when the rep when we get results it wouldn't be as detailed it would only have the like if you combine all the words at the library so all word one through four right now it's separated into one and two and three and four and you can see the breakdown of votes for those two reporting units it would just be one so we wouldn't see the as detailed of election results. I don't I mean I guess the only reason you do it is if if people come and say I don't know what ward I'm in and I don't know if I'm in the right place. If you simplified it from 12 down to four wards. So the I guess the question is do we ever have that problem? For the most part if the answer's no then

we have a sign that we have greeters kind of saying hey look at this map. There's a link to my vote. People can go on there put in their address see if they're in the right place. We don't have a ton. Sometimes people get confused with coming here because we do all the inerson here and they've been hearing, "Oh, voting's at Village Hall." They just get sent to their appropriate, right? That that's where we see most confusion.

I'd also say geographically, we're not a very large place. And so, at worst, you're a mile and a half from the correct voting place. Right. Right. And chances are you've probably been voting here a bunch of years anyhow. So, Okay. And if there's no other questions, any members of the public interested in this subject?

I just I just want really want to thank the staff for going through this process. I know that uh you know there was something that was set up and appropriate at at DPW, but I really appreciate um the the outreach to beh Lutheran. And I think based on everything I've seen, and I'm one of the people who votes in in in these wards, that uh I think this is going to be a a a a good solid option for us. And I just really appreciate you guys going through that process cuz it I think it'll be a a a good a good place to vote. I think it'll be uh another you know good opportunity for um you know to uh a place in our community to uh you know get get people in there and host and I just I really I really appreciate the effort.

Well, we appreciate the feedback because it is a better location. So, I think it will be it'll be good. It's a good setup and their staff has been really great. is I think the parking is also significantly seen as an improvement with that big lot. Yep. Yes. Yep. I'll be back. All right. I would entertain motion number one. I move that the village board adopt ordinance 1921 to amend section 120 of the municipal code pertaining to election ws and places of election. Thank you. Do I hear a second? Second.

Thank you, Sam. Uh any further questions? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Moving on to number two. Discussion of action on purchasing a hook lift vehicle. Mr. Matt. Oh. Oh, you're delegating, huh? Um, this one I don't think is going to take a lot of discussion, so I said I would take it. Um, so we talked Oh, well, I guess challenge accepted. It's $100,000. I mean, come on.

Challenge accepted. We talked about the hook lift in detail um over multiple meetings as part of the capital improvement process. Uh so this is really just bringing forward that actual purchase. Um the funds for the new piece of equipment will be borrowed in early 2026 with that that debt issuance um for 2026 and 2027. Um just as a reminder, this um I'll call it more utility vehicle, versatile vehicle will replace a rear loader um refuge truck, a leaf trailer, and a single axle dump truck. And so in our long range uh vehicle modeling, we're showing pretty significant savings as a result of making this transition. Um the quotes from multiple vendors were included in the memo. the price did go up 4% since the CIP was approved, which mostly the feedback we're hearing is from tariffs and just the volatility in that um in that international market. The public works uh committee did review this proposal and recommended the purchase of the hook lift vehicle and attachments as showed in the attached memo and exhibits in the amount of $614,32.

Do you know a delivery date? Month over a year. Over a year. It's all antenna. Well, that means we've got a year to figure out the name of the truck. There you go. Captain Book, should we name Should we Should we name the truck, the chassis, or like each individual? You got to name them all. We got name all the pieces. All right, let's go. Just name We'll name the truck. Kelsey, are we going to sell the old vehicles or are we just going to retire them out?

Yeah. So, we always our um fleet manager is very good at this. I received an email today for three that are being sent off for auction. Okay. So, one, the engine completely busted or is ruined. And so, he assessed that that is we're just sending it to the junkyard for scrap for like $300. But if he can get any amount of money, he puts it out on auction and reports back. And sometimes he goes to auction twice if he feels like the price wasn't as competitive with reserve dollars. So, he's very good at that.

Okay. My other question is so there there's kind of a big difference in the the lowest bid versus the other ones and it's in that hook lift with is that hydraulic. Are we just are we comfortable that the quality of that product is up to the same level? It just seemed a lot cheaper from that vendor.

So I think I can answer that one. So we have a relationship with uh Caspers and we have purchased equipment with them before. So, we feel confident as far as the difference of the different vendors and suppliers. And our mechanic, uh, he he does like to diversify his fleet, but he still feels comfortable with the choices of those chassis and the hydraulic system. So, the integration of all those moving parts and components. It it was a pretty big exercise to go through the whole entire CIP just to get the budget numbers, but to hone into that, he absolutely feels comfortable with the low bid for the that quote for the chassis. Okay. And then just one more. Does the staff at DPW have the expertise to operate it and use it or is there training? Is there like a a training or a learning curve to the the new vehicle?

I think everything has a learning curve to it, especially uh with the joystick for the Leaf vacuum, but if you think of our side loader system, that was a transition from your rear rear loader to your side loader with more of the joystick automation. So, we have skilled staff and once we do cross trainining with a few of our subject matter experts, I don't see that being an issue with any of those specialized pieces of equipment. Same thing with uh the plow package that'll have a wing plow, which is new for the village staff, but it's a huge benefit. I operated one back in the day with a wing plow. You can get a lot more lane miles and the shoulders cleared off and then you can bring it back up if you have something more narrow with local roads. So yeah, there's a little bit of cross trainining, but the operational effic efficiencies definitely outweigh the training.

Okay, thanks Matt. Um, obviously this is our first hook truck. Uh, it's a bit I wouldn't call it an experiment, but it's our first uh foray into hook trucks. If this works well, do you envision public works wanting additional hook trucks to replace other vehicles? That isn't our long range. The six-year CIP is one additional hook lift. So that's our ultimate goal, especially with leaf collection. We're going to test this one out, making sure we prove out the efficiencies, but that's our ultimate goal is to integrate the second hook lift system once we really collect that data after we obtain the first one.

Okay. Okay. Anyone else? Any members of the public interested in speaking on Brian? No, don't have any comments on it. Okay. Uh then I would entertain motion number two. I move that the village board approve the bid award purchase. Yep. I move that the village board approve the purchase of a hook lift vehicle and attachments as shown in the meeting packet in the amount of $614,32. Thank you. Do I hear a second? Second. Thank you, Brian. Uh any further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor say I.

I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Next item on the agenda is discussion action on the contract award for the library solar panel project. We've been talking about this for a couple years.

Yes, this is long time in the works and uh we're finally here based on uh the bids received. So just a short summary on this is we had to accomplish a couple other capital improvement projects prior to getting to the solar uh project. So this last year in 2025, we were successful at replacing the library roof as well as the inner workings of the alarm uh panel system for the uh fire detection system, but also with the roof is insulation. So we're going to have a lot more energy efficiency even with the roof replacement that we're going to keep on doing projects with the library to reduce our monthly and annual cost for heating, cooling, and all that good stuff. So, this is just another step in the right direction with the addition of solar panels to the library in order to reduce those monthly utility charges. Uh, going through that process, we uh found out early, I want to say to mid of 2025 that it's a moving target as far as the financial or federal incentives and rebates that we're able to obtain based on tax credits or the focus on energy. So we found that if we wait any longer it might be a disadvantage based on different incentive packages based on domestic content. How much is can be procured and outsourced locally through the US instead of overseas. So there was a sense of urgency uh in April for the village board to push this forward in 2025 instead of waiting for our normal CIP 26 through 2031 process in order to lock in better incentives. So with that, we expedited the process, went out to bid, and within the memo, you can see there's two different options for uh the solar panels that the village board and the public works committee has talked about a couple different times before. We have the option one, which is I'm going to call it more of the the robust

package of your uh southeast and southwest uh ridge line. So basically if you're walking in the front of the library, you'll see solar panels on in between all the dormers on that southern side of the large section of the library roof. So the bids came back from that and that was um basically 109,162. Uh the net uh change based on our quote uh was about 5,900. So just keep in mind just like we talked about the hook lift uh tariffs, labor, everything these things keep on um increasing in in cost even as we wait from April to right now that it just seems that it's more prudent to lock in these rates before we have additional labor charges. If you look at option two, that's the lesser of the two and that one, the bid result uh is 57,948. So, that one went up by $3,700. So, um within the bid package, uh both are appropriate. Both would be effective as far as the library based on the structural capacity. We'd had a structural engineer look at the solar panels. So, we have no concerns that either option would work. But going through the whole entire library roof replacement, hearing the history of the amount of active leaf leaks that we had to deal with, um, not getting the full expected useful life of the library roof. I personally have concerns over going with the larger of the two options just because we don't want to set ourselves up for shortcomings on the roof and the roof maintenance and what that might mean uh 5 10 15 years down the road because if you have additional penetrations in order to secure all the different apparatus of the uh solar panels, it's very difficult to find where that leak is coming from. And

that's part of the issue that we had in previous years that you might have a ceiling tile that's leaking in one spot, but the actual penetration or issue is all the way across the the hallway because it finds either conduit HVAC equipment. But if you have all of your panels for the solar panels up, be very difficult to find and isolate where you have your your issues. If you just add it on the southern portion of the library, I I don't think that would be as much of an issue for us to maintain for the expected useful life of of that roof as well as the solar panels. So, it's a great thing that we're doing this project in tandem with the roof replacement because both have an expected useful life of that 30 years. So, you always want to do one with the other that you're not ripping apart the solar panels in order to replace a roof. So it just makes sense to for the village board to approve this and be in conjunction with our replacement project. So those are the two options. Be more than happy to discuss or answer any questions relating to uh the bid award.

Yeah. So we've done this in a few other places in Whitefish Bay. Correct. Correct.

Are we tracking what the payback is in comparison to what the bid has been versus what we're seeing our electric bills being? Yeah, I I did look into that with Arch Solar B and since I wasn't here, I wasn't able to find the original documentation on that return on investment and how much it was going to be reduced uh for the DPW site specifically because Art Solar back in the day, they were able to do a lease a agreement and a lease arrangement versus bidding. That has since changed because of uh state legislation. So they weren't able to locate that original return on investment for the utility usage. But I would just I would have to do more digging to find the actual data behind that. But I would just have a certain assumption that we have seen that return on investment based on other similar projects.

There's only one the DPW, right? Yes. The DPW is the one for fire station 2 or something. No, not the fire station. No. A couple questions. The first is um the federal tax credit and maybe this maybe a Jamie question, but how do who applies for that? Is it Art Solar or is it us? That would be through us. We would we would apply for that and and I mean we don't typically file a tax form every year, but we know how to do this. Yeah, we looked into it high level and reached out to I think it was one other municipality that had submitted and they assured us it was pretty simple and quick. Okay. And that

Jamie felt comfortable in the end they would cut us a check somebody. Yep. Okay.

Um final question or comment and this you won't have this right now but a few years ago there was a program called 25 for 25 and it was a goal for municipalities to have 25% of their energy usage created by uh renewable sources. And I think we're pretty close. I think with this library project, we we might be at that 25 by 25. So if you have some time over the next few weeks, I mean, I guess you'd have to add up the kilowatts from the Wii Energies meters that we pay and then figure out if we hit the goal.

That's all I have. Matt, I'm sorry if I missed this during during your explanation, but since we're doing the two projects in tandem, why is there still concern about roof leakage if we are getting a new roof? Anytime that you ask an actual roofer, roof designer, anything that you put as far as a penetration, so you're going to have to adhere all these different brackets onto a roof, that's their ultimate concern is that you have another contractor making holes in a brand new roof. So, the concern is not our brand new roof as it stands right now, but it's our brand new roof putting additional things on that roof that could have um a weak point to it as far as leakage, infiltration of water, ice dams that uh crawl up the roof that might create other issues. We do have that ice and water barrier that that protective barrier that we added to our roof project just in case the board did have a desire to put more uh solar panels on. But it's just an inherent risk that I wanted to vocalize to the board that the more that you put those penetrations on there, the more risk you have of that point of failure or leak or anything else. So it's less about the current issues or the previous issues and more of the risk of causing problems.

100%. Okay. So it's not looking backwards, it's looking forwards. I I believe that we were able to correct the ventilation issues, um the leak issues with the new roof, put it in um brand new, not only shingles, but the underllayments as well. corrected all those past uh things that were either done inappropriately by the past contractor. So, all that's been corrected. It's more so adding more things to a brand new roof brings me a little bit of pause. Easy. Thank you.

On the DPW roof, Matt, do you have any sense of how the efficiencies held up of those panels? I think they're like six or seven years old. Are they still Do you get a report on that at all? We do receive um I think either a monthly or uh every other month report as far as their efficiencies and I'd be more than happy to share that with the village board. But another good thing is they will let us know if they're inefficient like an inverter goes for instance. I was the first to know because they have their system synced where they are able to monitor them to make sure that their performance measures and metrics are are on queue with what they would expect. So, one of our solar panels within that grid was not being energy efficient during that period. And they quickly were able to say, "This one's under warranty. We need to schedule an appointment and replace that inverter."

And I think I saw it in here, but the warranty, how long is the warranty on them? Oh, is it 10 years? I think it's 10 years. Just so it's it's longer than the payback period, right? So, the warranty is longer than the Thanks. And just uh on the payback as far as annual savings between the two options, uh option one, the larger of the two, uh that's an annual expected savings uh for our energy of 12,684. Option two is 6,268 energy savings as far as our utility bill, the energies bill. And is that based on the cost of energy today? So I believe so if energy goes up, those numbers go down. It would probably be skewed with that.

Yeah, that was an interesting I think they had it going up 3% per year. I feel like it might be higher than 3% per year over time, but you know, for the ROI. Any other questions? Any members of the public interested in the subject? Once, twice. All right. Entertain motion number three. I move that the village board approve the bid award option number two in the amount of 99,700 to Arch Solar CNI as described within the meeting pack. Thank you. Do I hear a second? Second. I'll give that to Jay. I think chimed in first. Buzzed in first. Uh any further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor say I.

I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. All right. On to I think our last public option. public item tonight and that is uh action discussion on one-time exemption for the hours of operation listed in the conditional use permit and development agreement uh to allow the Argo entertainment venue and bar to operate until 12:15 a.m. on January 1st, 2026.

So, the good news is is that we wrote such an ironclad conditional use that's in essentially no wiggle room. Um, but it was brought to our attention that the Argo is planning to host a New Year's Eve event. I think a lot of people would agree that most that you would want to be out at that event until midnight on New Year's Eve. Uh, and so the request um is to stay open to be able to continue operating both the bar restaurant as well as that entertainment area until 12:15 on technically New Year's Day. Is it is it reasonable to is 12:15? I was going to make an amendment to or like something later.

Yeah, I think at 12:45 one. That sounds great. Adam Powers wanted to be very cautious about go all the way to one. He wasn't the one that approached me about this. Um, so he when I when I reached out to him, he was like, "No, that would be great, but I don't want it to look like we just opened and we're already asking for changes." So I guess what I don't want is whatever we whatever time we pick that there will likely be people lingering and so my guess is they'll stop at 12:15 and then there's going to be half an hour people milling about and so I think 12:45 is I want to go one

I want to go one I'm going to get on my soap box. You know, we have spent tens of thousands of dollars, countless hours, study after study, survey after survey, trying to make our downtown a place where people want to be. And this is the first time in a really long time that there's going to be a lot of people there who want to be there and celebrate. And I don't want the ball to drop and then we turn around and we're just like, see you guys. So, like, I feel like one makes sense. It's a suburb. If this was closer to downtown, I'd say three. Um, but I think one makes sense for us. 1:00. I'm good with I have no problem with that. And as long as I mean

I mean I don't want to speak for the Argo, but I assume they'd be fine being open until one. I I I think that the operators of Argo have always been cautious and even the the the their opening night which was they had 500 people in the house. Um, they had last call at at 10:45, which was interesting because they could have continued selling alcohol up until 11:30. Yeah. It's everyone out by midnight. Midnight. Yeah. They have to be out the door by midnight,

right? So, they they purposely said, "No, we'll for forego the extra hour and 15 to make sure that everybody's happy on this big day of maximum um visitation." So, it wouldn't surprise me if at 12:15 they turn the lights on and start getting people out. They're not going to we're not going to they're going to be selling booze, you know, until 1 if we pass it at until one. All right. I mean, I'm fine with it as long as we we are cognizant of the fact that if we have a lot of complaints, we might have to go back and say for the future 12:30, 12:45.

Sure. Sure. Yeah. Um, really quick, I have heard from a several people that there were that they're pleasantly surprised on opening night and we got no noise complaints. Correct. Is is that

Yeah. Um, so we had two complaints that were related. Um, so one one person and then there encouraged the neighbor to call it. What happened and Adam took it very very seriously when I emailed him. He gave me a whole list of things that they had learned. One of which is they have a soundproof door inside the building that had been left open inadvertently with everybody running around um on the first day. And so that resulted in sound going down the back hallway. And so then when their employees were taking breaks out the back door, the sound was impacting. It did sound like it was a consistent sound regardless, but the door opening did have an impact. So he assured me that that door would be closed. His staff is now taking breaks out of a different door. Um they're adjusting the soundboard. I mean, he had a list of like eight different things they were going to do. Uh and then we also had our police officers go by for both events this weekend. Um and couldn't they didn't notice any sound leaving the building and then they also took decibel readings that were well below.

So those complaints were people complaining just about sound, not anything else about sound. And then there was a disturbance in the alley as well. Um but that didn't get reported um to our police department, which was unfortunate. It sounded like it should have been. Um so I just advise them to definitely feel same same people same people making the both complaints. Um the one the one person called about noise and then told me of the disturbance. So that was that was one of the individuals and then the other just called about sound and do they live in the behind? They do. Yep.

Terra I was there on Saturday just in the lounge area during the show and the sound control was incredible. You couldn't hear anything outside of the even the little concert hall. Yeah, you could have a full conversation. It was very impressive. So, I think they deserve a lot of credit for what they've done so far. So, yeah. I don't want this to be considered as me. No, I just I was just blown away by how good it was. It was really impressive. So, yeah. Yeah. They've been very good partners so far. Very responsive and quick to take things very seriously. So, I I think that tends to solve a lot of problems if you have willing partners. So, that's been good. For sure. Yeah,

one of the comments I made in the very beginning was about how this is modifying the conditional use permit. Um, one thing that I've learned from our village attorney is that municipalities can't control the sale of alcohol in Wisconsin, curtail it any less than 2 am and 2:30 on weekends. And so I thought that it was the developer agreement that actually controlled the time that we could uh have them earlier than than bar time.

So they that was in their submitt was the time they agreed. That's the lynch pin. Like they have to agree to the time we can back when the attorney's in the room. Yeah. It doesn't Yeah. It doesn't matter to me. It's we're we're deciding to allow this until apparently 1:00 a.m. I just thought it was the developer agreement that that controlled it. But anyhow, um hit any other questions, comments. Any members of the public? Maybe somebody from the Bowmont Apartments? No. Okay. Uh then I would entertain a motion number four and you can insert. Why don't you make it, Jacob?

Sure. I move that the village board grant a one-time exception to the hours of operation listed in the conditional use permit to allow the Argo to operate until 1:00 a.m. on January 1st, 2026. Thank you. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Sam. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. That concludes our public meeting for the day. The next item is to go into close session. Could somebody make the motion as written?

I move that the village board convene into close session pursuant to state statute 19851E deliberating or negotiating the purchase of public property, investing in public funds, conducting other specified business, whether competitive and/or bargaining reasons. Require a closed session specifically regarding the school the White Fishbay school district's use of carp land. Thank you. Do I hear a second? Second. Thank you, Sam. Uh any further discussion hearing? None. All those in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries.

So, we've now gone into close session. I know all these US government people are thinking, "Oh man, I've got to be here for 45 minutes and they're kicking us out after 35." But the superintendent is here and he will write each one of you a note, excusing you for the last 10 minutes of this assignment. And I remember the two of you. Wait a minute. Who snuck in here like 10 minutes late? You did right there. Wow. You woke up to it, too. Wow. That's impressive. Here's here's what you need to do. You need to go on YouTube and watch one of the other meetings that we have. That's like two hours long. That's your Don't don't listen to him. The rest of us don't. I'm scared. Merry Christmas. I want to I want to help. You're not throwing stones. Got some ideas.

You're welcome. Your thing say All right. Do you know who iPhone 184 is? Go. All right. It is 8:28 and we've come back from close session and the only thing left to do is Mr. President move to adjurnn. Thank you. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you. I'm going to give that to Tara. Uh all those in favor of adjourning say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. We're adjourned. Thank you every for everybody for sticking around so long. gift. Can I