[0:13] Right. 6 p.m. Father's regular village board meeting to order. If you help,

[0:16] please join me in a moment.

[0:32] » The pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of

[0:38] America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God,

[0:44] indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[0:50] » This clerk, you take >> Trusty Nice.

[0:53] » Trusty Tri >> here.

[0:54] » Trusty Ferguson >> present.

[0:56] » Trusty Char. >> Trusty Ger

[0:58] » here. >> Trusty Fletcher

[0:59] » present. Village President Kimy >> President. Any public announcements this

[1:02] evening?

[1:08] Les Morgan with Chad and BFW.

[1:13] » Okay, that's green. All right. Okay. Les Morgan with the Chad BFW. Uh, first of

[1:19] all, in observance of the 25th anniversary of

[1:23] 911, we'd like permission to be able to put flags along Route 4 Memorial Park.

[1:30] Okay. We'll get that done. That'll be from Wednesday to Wednesday.

[1:35] Okay. Then the next thing is September the 18th at 700 p.m. we have a music

[1:43] bingo and at 6:00 p.m. we'll be gathering around the flag at

[1:48] the VFW for a moment silence and in remembrance of PM MIA.

[1:56] » Thank you. >> Any other any further comments on our

[2:01] agenda topics signed up? Others

[2:07] no old business. Item one under new business is an ordinance approving

[2:10] purchase of concrete materials. Get a motion to bring this to the floor.

[2:14] » Trusty Fletcher made a >> motion.

[2:22] Uh Lincoln concrete $30,176. Any further discussion or question or

[2:29] Mr. Cler? >> Trusty Fletcher.

[2:32] » Yes. >> Trusty Girker.

[2:33] » Yes. Trusty Nice. >> Yes.

[2:35] » Trusty Tribe. >> Yes.

[2:37] » Trusty Ferguson. >> Yes.

[2:38] » Trusty Char? >> Yes.

[2:41] » Motion to bring the consent agenda to the floor.

[2:44] » Trusty Charles made a motion. Have a second.

[2:46] » All second. >> Second by Trusty Ferguson. Any

[2:48] discussion regarding the warrants or the minutes? Hearing none. Mr.

[2:52] » Trusty Nice. >> Yes.

[2:54] » Trusty Tri. >> Yes.

[2:55] » Trusty Ferguson. >> Yes.

[2:56] » Trusty Charo. >> Yes.

[2:58] » Trusty Ger. >> Yes.

[2:59] » Trusty Fletcher. >> Yes.

[3:02] » We are had to schedule on the committee. Um,

[3:08] so we we'll start with all the comments here. We'll let Pat give the

[3:13] administrator's report. Uh, to the portion board concerns utility bills and

[3:18] I'll preface this off with an apology to anybody that got impacted by this. Um

[3:24] certainly not our intention to make a mistake like this and have an extended

[3:27] brief period but Pat and staff have been reviewing this and going back through

[3:31] all the procedures and what happened here. So probably beneficial to let him

[3:36] kind of walk through that is back here and maybe as well anybody

[3:41] has questions.

[3:44] Okay. The information below is the process

[3:48] that occurred specifically for the reading of meters and building customers

[3:53] for July 26 usage and build at the end of August and those bills were not due

[4:01] till the 7 15th of this month for August 26 utility billing.

[4:08] residential meter reading route was scheduled in our new meter reading

[4:12] software to pick up meter reads for billing of July usage. We had that those

[4:20] dates set to read from 7:3126 to 8526.

[4:27] This time period allowed for the reads to be picked up electronically through

[4:31] our meter reading software and then the remaining reads were picked up by our

[4:36] meter reader through driveby or manual method. With these scheduled days,

[4:42] reading customers would have approximately been around 30 days worth

[4:46] of usage.

[4:51] In the new meter reading software, a commercial meter reading route was

[4:56] scheduled to retrieve meter readings for commercial customers starting

[5:00] electronically on A10, 2026. The time mentioned above is the same

[5:06] process for reading the commercial meters as it was for the residential

[5:10] ones. When the commercial route was scheduled,

[5:14] the residential customers came into that route in error. This prompted a large

[5:20] portion of the electronically read meters that were done earlier to be

[5:26] rewritten over and days turned out to be 41 days. 40 41

[5:34] days. Excuse me.

[5:37] The official building process cannot begin until penalties were applied. So,

[5:44] no one looked at that file after all those those reads were done. It sat in

[5:50] our computer waiting for the bills from the previous month to come in and get

[5:55] paid. If if anybody was late, if there was late payments to be put on there,

[6:01] stuff like that. that all has to get added into that file before we merge the

[6:06] read to it. So, it sat there essentially until uh it was exported on 826

[6:14] of 2026.

[6:34] So, we've read 3500 meters electronically where you can push a

[6:38] button at one time. It reads 3,500 of the 6,000 are still customers that we

[6:43] have.

[6:47] The error was caught when the customers received their electronic bills on 8:26

[6:56] and then the building staff started investigating the situation

[7:02] and issued a dealer statement on 91 2026.

[7:08] Some customers utility bills, including electric, water, and sewer, were based

[7:13] on 40-day meter reads instead of the normal 30-day reads. As a result, those

[7:18] bills will be higher than usual because they included approximately 10

[7:22] additional days for those customers. Next month reading

[7:27] period, it will be reduced by 10 days. So, their next bill should only be

[7:32] around 20 days long. We've identified this error in our

[7:38] process and we've taken steps to ensure that it doesn't happen again

[7:45] and then we have a new update or we have a new process for all employees. The

[7:51] other thing that added to the bills was in your in your bill that you received

[7:57] back uh in

[8:03] the village board passed a water rate increase and the sewer rate increase

[8:09] that you got a notice back on your March 26 bill that would go into effect

[8:17] June 1st, 2026 for that were due July 15th, 2026.

[8:24] Probably not noticed that much last month

[8:29] because it was a normal 30-day re that

[8:35] is what we've come up with for the reason. I'd be more than happy

[8:40] to try to answer any of the questions. You have a question for Pat or Taylor or

[8:46] Megan?

[8:51] We had used the for two months the system to be able to read all meters at

[8:56] one time with the idea that we'd be able to get all of those in there, but we're

[9:01] still having issues with older meters and stuff like that. So, we were able to

[9:06] pick those up when we drive by, >> but our goal is to still be able to get

[9:11] to that point. >> Those affected won't be charged a late

[9:15] fee next month. this one or the next one.

[9:26] » This is a >> it's a board meeting in the public.

[9:35] the questions I've been getting which are many but one of them is why is there

[9:39] an inconsistent rate because sometimes meters will say you know 31 days or 28

[9:45] days and so can you clarify that >> that those are simply the days that we

[9:52] can schedule our meter reader to go out there we try to they would split the

[9:56] talent up in the books load them on this laptop

[10:00] and go around and pick up. You try to get all those done on the same day. So

[10:05] if you did a certain part of the town on Monday, you would go back the next month

[10:11] and read that part of the town on a Monday

[10:15] and you would do the next book and just move your way all the way around town.

[10:20] We always knew that was going to be a bit of an issue, but we thought with a

[10:24] new system that would read all the meters at one time that would eliminate

[10:28] that problem.

[10:31] Yeah. So that's kind of the the point behind

[10:35] » trying to get the automated reviews. The first month the automated reads went

[10:39] through this we had this issue. The second month I file on the schedule got

[10:44] overwritten on. So we're trying to cut down on the number of things that have

[10:48] to be read by driving by trying to do visual

[10:52] inspection. So they're advancing the process to get it better so that it's

[10:56] all clear. The other thing that does plug in every time is just how the

[11:01] calendar falls. So, we don't have a specific 30 day. If you're on 30 days,

[11:07] you end up with five extra at the end of the year or six.

[11:12] » I think we can all do that math. >> Yeah. So, it's fairly simple.

[11:16] » Yeah. So, if if the if you're falling on the weekend or on a

[11:21] holiday at any point in time, that start that process moves.

[11:32] You have more questions. >> No, not right now.

[11:37] » That's scale Lisa here. We we had we had Lisa look through to make sure that we

[11:42] didn't miss anything with how we were trying to address this and try to

[11:46] mitigate the sticker shot that showed up with. One of the things that's in there

[11:50] is the notion meters are red on or about the same day. So you can't quite get

[11:56] exactly on the same 30 days, but certainly asset procedure

[12:04] when they have to go out or when they have to get particularly old older homes

[12:09] with a lot of inside. Those are some of the hardest to get at both to update.

[12:20] » Could we notify the ones we have to get the actual physical reading off the

[12:26] meter. >> We have to do that.

[12:28] » Okay. That would that would be that would be helpful too.

[12:34] » Can those homes get a new meter that's going to be direct from the outside?

[12:38] » We that's the process that we're working on. The electric is

[12:44] what probably 98% been

[12:48] replaced. We don't have any issue picking up the electric.

[12:52] » They read on the fixed network. Yeah. >> Yeah. They read on the fixed network.

[12:56] The water runs a little different, >> but we're hoping to be able since

[13:00] they're switching it from a radio signal system to a southern system. We're

[13:07] hoping to approach you with a plan to be able to switch all of the water meters

[13:12] to a southern plan in the future so that we'll be able to do the same thing. one

[13:17] thing big small and then once they're on the cellular I

[13:24] think my software has the process that customers want to pay a little extra

[13:30] they can get and log into their account and see their daily usage and stuff like

[13:36] that be able to track stuff themselves but I haven't seen that proposal yet

[13:42] anybody else so we have other public comments those

[13:47] just signed up Mike. >> Yes.

[13:51] Um

[13:57] I walk for a couple at least a couple miles every day on the sidewalks. The

[14:03] Aspen and Spruce they've got Take a look at the pictures and they're building

[14:09] like curbs in the middle of the sidewalk. It's a liability hazard. Huge

[14:13] liability hazard. Just doesn't make any sense. That would be pitched too.

[14:18] Um, page one is the entrance go from the sidewalk to the uh street. They don't

[14:24] match anymore. Um,

[14:28] the third page is the issue I brought. That was it last month. They took that

[14:33] out. But when they when what they did was they fixed the lower portion, then

[14:37] they added curves to the upper portion for no reason. There's a I3 utility box

[14:43] there which is the second picture on page three. So it's like curves

[14:51] curves. My serious question is this company being incentivized to curves on

[14:56] sidewalks being what are the specs?

[15:02] Please take a look. >> Our engineers designed those and they

[15:06] meet they did and they said that they meet the current standard. So, we're

[15:11] gonna the curbs that are sticking up, we're

[15:16] going to paint those yellow so they'll stand out.

[15:18] » That's for wheelchairs, not to roll into the street sitting. That's why it's new

[15:22] ADA >> um that the engineer put all the new ADA

[15:26] rules in. That's why we have to upgrade all those intersections. Every time we

[15:29] do a road, all four corners have to be red down.

[15:32] » So, wheelchairs, >> that's exactly what that is. Like they

[15:35] roll up, they don't roll on the road. That little bump holds them there.

[15:39] » No, there's no bump. Well, the bump is like a 3-in curve.

[15:42] » Yeah, that's for the That's what that's there for. So, we're going to paint it

[15:46] yellow so the kids riding bikes see it when they're approaching it.

[15:50] » We just talked to the engineer this morning about this, but they're just

[15:53] asking because we we've had complaints just like you're ran into.

[15:56] » Okay. All right. So, they're not I mean,

[16:00] they're not being paid for to put in curbs. No, they they did exactly what

[16:04] they the engineer design >> engineer spec

[16:07] » and we had to follow um different rules by the states with the ADA. So,

[16:13] » but I asked him this morning if there ADA was exactly how ADA wants it.

[16:20] » Does make sense. >> I'm not arguing with you. We're we're

[16:24] just doing what they asked us to do. So, >> all right. But we will paint it yellow

[16:28] to make sure the people the kids see it. >> Once the any snowfalls, people are going

[16:34] to be tripping over >> because the city doesn't shovel

[16:38] sidewalks. >> You'd have to change the state ADA rules

[16:44] that it is an ADA rule or and federal. >> It's going to be easier to show. I tell

[16:49] you that change. All right.

[16:53] » What about the uh the third picture at the corner of

[16:58] Spruce and Breen? >> So, since we're in public comment, if

[17:03] you want to hang around, Dustin can help you with individual questions on that.

[17:09] It's kind of not necessarily discussion back and forth, but

[17:14] » Okay. >> I'm sure he would be glad to hang around

[17:17] and and walk you through. >> I understand. All

[17:21] right. Well, thank you, Megan Stats. >> Hello everybody. Um, I had a whole big

[17:29] thing ready to go and you answered a lot of my questions. So, I want to say thank

[17:33] you for at least the explanation here tonight. I think a lot of people have

[17:37] been looking for that for a few days. Um, you guys talked about sticker shock,

[17:42] but um, this is something that really impacts people like really there are

[17:47] people that live in this village that extra2 or $300

[17:52] makes a difference. It makes a big difference. So, I really appreciate the

[17:55] explanation. I think a lot of people are looking for that and I appreciate the

[17:59] ladies being here tonight. I can only imagine how difficult it's been for the

[18:03] past week. Um, >> a couple things I still wanted to touch

[18:07] on though that I don't feel is right is any kind of a resolution that anybody's

[18:13] going to come to with this is been put on the customer. So, I need to make

[18:18] appropriated payment on my bill. I need to call the office, I'm assuming, and

[18:23] arrange that. I think new bills should have been sent to people. And maybe your

[18:28] system doesn't allow for that, but that needs to be explained to people. I

[18:33] shouldn't have to be the one to call or go into the office to make my own

[18:38] arrangements to make the correct payment for my 30 days or 33 days or what I have

[18:46] it written down here. 25 days, 29 days, 37 days. Those are all the different

[18:52] days that have been built for per month. I let me know what a prorated payment

[18:56] is. >> Well, we would take the 40 days for and

[19:00] the total amount of your bill and divide it by 40 and then you would only have to

[19:06] pay 30 days of that bill >> based on 30 days. Yeah.

[19:09] » And then the other 10 days would go on to the next month. And then when that

[19:14] build comes in >> just like Yeah.

[19:16] » and the meter's red, then we have to wait and add that to it.

[19:20] » Yeah. And you know what? And like my family, we can move some things around

[19:24] and we can make it work. But there my 84y old neighbor who's on social

[19:29] security and a fixed income who doesn't have Facebook. She doesn't have the app

[19:33] and the alerts. She has no idea. She just gets the big bill in the mail. If

[19:37] she she's not here, I'm going to have to relay it all to her. You know, it's I

[19:42] just think an opportunity to do better, learn from the mistakes. I mean,

[19:46] mistakes happen. We all we all they haven't. But I appreciate the time to

[19:51] speak and and thank you for the explanation at least. Thank you very

[20:00] » following along. Um first of all, I'll say I can speak to it on two different

[20:05] levels because first of all, I've had software for accounting for 30 years

[20:08] now. But second, our welcome to when we moved here 16 years ago was one of the

[20:14] neighbor kids turning on our outdoor faucet which stayed on for probably four

[20:19] days and they worked with us very well. We mentioned we had about a $750 water

[20:25] bill that time and that was 2015 and that worked very smoothly. So the only

[20:32] thing I've got is not the immediate followup because it sounds like you

[20:36] handled that very well. Have we now learned a little bit about installing

[20:39] software? look at all the files and they come up.

[20:42] » So, >> if you work around software, do you

[20:46] know? >> Oh, I I do. I handle the uh the highway

[20:50] reimbursement software for >> Oh, yeah.

[20:53] » about for you, too.

[20:58] » Anyway, >> the bill your bill.

[21:03] » We have notes on that as well, Patrick. No, I appreciate it. Again, we apologize

[21:09] that it happened. I know that's that's a lot to to throw at people. Um,

[21:14] and and I know primarily because I asked them every day

[21:18] for five days straight last week, you know, are we sure? What are we doing?

[21:23] That they've gone back through um added steps that we didn't have to do before.

[21:28] I mean, this this is a process like I said that the full sweep of the fixed

[21:33] network happened fine the first time that they run it. Nobody even knew that

[21:37] a switch. That's how you hope any software implementation goes. Uh it's

[21:44] rare, right? Carl who also does this that that's what you get. The second one

[21:49] we have figured out what happened and to Megan

[21:56] and team utility office. They have gone through this exceptionally detailed into

[22:03] individualized steps and move things around.

[22:07] if things will be checked and double checked by multiple people.

[22:12] » So, we appreciate the grace as we learned something um

[22:17] anytime that we talk about utility bills and things because they are so

[22:21] individualized to your own house. the best advice and what does help us as a

[22:28] village and our staff. If somebody has a question of it, the best place to get

[22:33] answers about any particular usage at a certain residence or a bill about a

[22:37] certain residence is encourage people to contact the utility office. They're the

[22:41] ones that can open up an account, tell you exactly what they're seeing with

[22:45] regards to your house. We try to issue something in a generalized statement.

[22:50] We're trying to tailor something that makes sense to 6,000 plus utility

[22:55] customers and can't get granular enough without writing a novel that everybody

[23:01] stops reading after the first two paragraphs.

[23:04] That's where we are. Again, I'll apologize.

[23:08] There was a lot to see. All right. Are there any other public

[23:14] comments on hearing? We back to the schedule. Next

[23:20] village board meeting is September 22nd 6 p.m. We have no need for executive

[23:25] session. So we'll entertain a motion to adjourn the board meeting portion of

[23:29] tonight's festivities. >> Trust made a motion second by truster.

[23:35] All in favor

[23:43] 624. >> Trusty Fletcher

[23:47] » here. >> Trusty Ger

[23:48] » here. >> Trusty Ferguson

[23:50] » present. >> Trusty Try

[23:52] » here. >> Trusty Nice

[23:53] » present. Trusty >> Char.

[24:03] Any public comments on agenda topics? >> Hearing none. Can I have a motion to

[24:09] bring the consent agenda to the table? >> I make a motion.

[24:12] » Motion made by Trusty Ferguson. Seconded by Trusty Try. Any discussion

[24:17] on the consent agenda? >> Hearing none. All in favor? I

[24:25] » no old business new business. Do we have a CMT?

[24:29] » We do not. >> All right.

[24:31] » But I have second part of my update.

[24:37] So for the month of August, uh

[24:42] the residents of Chadam purchased 37,225,380

[24:48] gallons of water from South S water. We completed our water main taps in

[24:54] Spartan Lake states.

[24:59] We did all of our EPA requested sampling in that month.

[25:05] leaks located on Bingham Road in Hodes

[25:11] and put in all the utility locates for the month of August and

[25:17] our Julie utility locates for the month of August.

[25:22] Street department rebuilt the roadway shoulders on East Walnut Street. Did

[25:28] some asphalt patching throughout town. Repair Covered Bridge Road, El Camino,

[25:34] and South Gate for seal coating and oil chip.

[25:39] Performed by trail maintenance within 40T section on our park.

[25:53] Completed tree on spruce and bracket ridge.

[25:57] removed a lot of vegetation along cover bridge road which all we've got is

[26:03] praise for that ever since we did that and replaced some signs in M park.

[26:09] Lastly, in the parks department, we completed right away mowing and trim

[26:16] all the village cemeteries. Got all football fields, soccer fields

[26:21] and everything else ready for activities as kids come back from school. Performed

[26:26] maintenance on our shop and completed vegetation control at the park.

[26:34] So, it's been busy.

[26:40] questions. >> No, I I would like to say one thing

[26:45] though. I do appreciate how well the building department has

[26:50] worked to get the resolution done and we do like to hear from

[26:58] and we appreciate some grace because we're all learning as we

[27:03] just wanted to say thanks for the ones who reached out to me and to listen and

[27:08] understood what was happening and for everyone that took the calls at the

[27:12] water department and took

[27:16] calls. So, thank you to you for helping us out.

[27:23] » It's we have pride in our work that we do and when we mess up we try to figure

[27:30] out what went wrong. We try to be truthful with people and we try to come

[27:33] up with solutions to be able so that it will impact them release them. This is

[27:39] what we come up with this time. I know it's going to impact some people but

[27:46] we try. >> Yeah. And that's I think that's the

[27:50] thing is I'm happy to know that we're able to help the homes that need healthy

[27:55] and give them a solution and we can't go back and fix it. Would you help them

[28:00] forward? >> Somebody's unable to come in, they would

[28:04] just make a phone call at the office. So, the girls will have stuff on the

[28:07] computer and they'll be able to talk to figure out something.

[28:18] Anything else on the left? So I wanted to ask you about again

[28:25] because the other um questions so I get different types of questions they have

[28:29] to do with water they have to do with electric and they have to do with our

[28:32] roads and so I'm asking about >> Pet

[28:49] has one more week sitting out on the bid By our meeting in two weeks, you'll have

[28:56] in front of you what the bids are and asking you to accept the low bid.

[29:04] If the weather holds and we got a contractor that's not super busy,

[29:08] they'll probably jump off right away, get it taken care of. So from

[29:13] Boulevard down to Teal, we do all the ground down to resurface and better

[29:19] these things. that that covers up some of the bulkhead

[29:24] work. Jim call them bulkhead because I call

[29:28] the concrete patch goes in there to hold the road together.

[29:31] » Oh yeah. >> Um and then we have additional patching

[29:36] that has been done on Jason Place and trying to do the same thing. So

[29:45] when you see the concrete strips that get cut out of the road, poured back in,

[29:50] that is reinforcement that keeps the road together so we don't have to spend

[29:55] the money to replace the entirety of the room. And then as either on the MF front

[30:02] state to approve the letting plans, they've done that, they're out, it's

[30:08] coming in, but we do eventually get back to with a

[30:13] nice black smooth surface over the top. That is what that concrete patch goes

[30:18] into town is well not perfect saves a lot of money by not having to

[30:26] replace the entirety of the road and let it go. But we do a lot of those along

[30:31] road like tick and going north of the plumber. There's been a lot of patches

[30:36] along it. It saved that road. That road hasn't deteriorated anymore since we

[30:41] started doing that patching along there. But the plan is to grind all that off or

[30:46] at least the top couple inches and then resurface all that difference. A lot of

[30:51] heavy equipment in there right now. That's right. The spot where we stopped

[30:55] is right.

[31:04] » Dustin has done a really good job on top of our roads.

[31:08] and work with contractors. >> Firstborn firstborn that's been

[31:14] completed. Uh the area that was patched the other day uh was traded. It was part

[31:23] of a letter of credit for Mayor Hill 2 phase 2. And the contractor agreed to

[31:32] instead of doing one thing, he would dig all that area up there and patch it.

[31:38] So that's all been done. So you'll also have at the next meeting

[31:44] if they release his letter for part of man to phase two.

[31:52] » I received it a few time. >> Oh yeah.

[31:57] » Was that was that is that the call with the

[32:03] » I mean as far as you calling the concrete underneath of it is the

[32:09] whole kit. Yeah. Then put that over the top. But even even the last update that

[32:14] Jim gave us with the screen that's underneath that was kept well and

[32:17] overall that those that folks on the road have

[32:23] » we have a plan going forward what roads to take care of stuff and the technology

[32:30] so far >> the two years

[32:36] » two of the projects that we put in for s uh progress

[32:42] » have progressed through the technical committee and will be available for the

[32:48] executive committee to vote on week from Thursday. So if that's the

[32:55] case two more big projects that should move forward to at the same time as the

[33:02] MFT stuff and experimental road stuff we'll try to start tackling those from

[33:07] three different pots going forward. The sad stuff we get

[33:14] projects through that our portion of that project cost

[33:20] 31% total project cost through money that's coming

[33:27] some of these that we know we need to tackle depending on the functional

[33:33] classification of road we try to get matching money and

[33:37] leverage others to go further. So that's my subsequ All

[33:46] right.

[33:52] So, no public properties.

[34:06] Any

[34:13] public comments on business?

[34:19] Hearing none. The next scheduled meeting is October

[34:24] 13th for the committee of the whole. We have no reason for our close session. So

[34:31] I will take a motion to adjourn.

[34:36] Trusty T made a motion. Second

[34:40] by

[34:46] all in favor. All right. This meeting is

Village Board Meeting followed by The Committee of the Whole

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