[0:01] manually read their water meters until i came to howard lake

[0:04] um we get i'm not kidding when we get phone calls

[0:09] every billing cycle people are complaining about reading their water

[0:13] meters it's it's a huge complaint and there's

[0:16] some people that they can't get to it and it you know

[0:19] then they want us to come out and read them

[0:21] and so we're looking for a auto read system where we would have

[0:28] like a handheld system in our vehicles and our public works department would

[0:31] drive around to collect all of the water meter readings um you know the same day

[0:35] every month um we believe that this would be

[0:39] more accurate we know that there's probably people that aren't reading

[0:42] their meter right on accident or potentially on purpose um

[0:48] we're not getting timely water meter readings we're not getting them at all

[0:51] we have some accounts where we haven't received a water meter reading in almost

[0:54] a year and you know we call them we send them

[0:57] letters and they still don't get back to us so we're estimating and

[1:02] it's just not good for anybody it's really difficult to collect what we're

[1:06] supposed to be collecting and um so part of this rfp is we're looking

[1:10] for a turnkey solution we want compatibility with our existing

[1:14] software which is banyan we don't want to have to switch up our software as

[1:17] well we've talked to a couple water meter

[1:21] suppliers and those two have both said that their

[1:25] systems would work with ours so we're hoping to get more interest in

[1:30] this project and that hopefully more people can work

[1:33] with our system we want quality and warranty

[1:40] and future maintenance and operations we i included in the rfp a potential

[1:49] timeline that we're going to be looking at

[1:52] so we would release this you know as soon as we post it as soon as tomorrow

[1:55] but it wouldn't hit the newspaper until next friday

[1:58] um we want to have questions from the potential suppliers back to us by

[2:03] april 2nd we would supply answers to those

[2:07] questions by april 9th um so on and so forth we would want to

[2:13] bring whoever we select or whoever we agree

[2:16] upon back to city council in may and

[2:21] i put august as a potential deployment date

[2:25] we aren't sure how quickly i mean it could be june it could be august it

[2:29] could maybe december we don't know what that's looking like yet

[2:32] um

[2:46] discussing this with other communities that have done the same

[2:49] you get a really wide range of proposals and there's really good and bad in that

[2:55] so there's some different vendors that are from out of state that come in with

[3:00] really attractive prices but

[3:06] likewise there's some people that we know locally that we already do business

[3:10] with but we know that they're the most expensive product

[3:13] so doing this really levels the playing field and gives equal consideration to

[3:17] each one of those vendors for you guys to make a fair and right

[3:21] decision

[3:31] what happens during the billing cycle though when people

[3:34] i mean do you anticipate people calling and disputing

[3:37] the auto read just as much as they're complaining about

[3:40] having to read or we think that there's gonna be some hiccups at the beginning

[3:46] um mostly because we i mean we we have people that are reporting

[3:52] that they're only using maybe 400 gallons a month i mean maybe you are

[3:56] if it's a single person and you know whatever maybe you are i

[4:00] don't know but so it might be those people that are

[4:03] like my bill has never been this high but it could be because they're reading

[4:07] their meter on um but i think it might be the opposite way

[4:12] too that people's readings are gonna be more accurate

[4:16] maybe you know we don't we don't know what we don't know on all these water

[4:19] meters some of them are 40 plus years old

[4:21] and i think that you know maybe we would see some people's bills go down

[4:26] and and we know we know we've seen it bills go down because we have so many

[4:29] accounts that we estimate month after month

[4:32] and we're estimating what we're estimating we can't

[4:35] you know we can't cut down the number you know we have to estimate what we

[4:38] have to estimate and i know we had somebody who had a

[4:41] water leak in like this is just an example in november and

[4:46] then they did not give us a water meter reading

[4:48] so they had like 27 000 gallons in november then they proceeded to not give

[4:52] us a water meeting water meter reading december january

[4:57] so december january they were getting billed for 27 000

[5:01] gallons because we had to estimate based off the month before

[5:05] and this i mean this would be a huge i think this would be super helpful for

[5:10] a lot of people and we wouldn't be charging people the

[5:12] twenty dollar no read fee and people calling and disputing that

[5:16] all the time and i think that

[5:22] is

[5:30] yeah so i think jason i think even taking that a step further

[5:35] software will have glitches there'll be glitches in transition

[5:39] that sort of thing but that being said the software and auto read meters

[5:44] takes out a large opportunity for human error

[5:48] we also get readings as frequently as we ask for them

[5:51] so that could be as frequent as hourly or as often as we need to have the crew

[5:56] go out to do manual like catch the readings frankly i think

[6:00] it will be much harder to dispute their readings and

[6:04] their bill once this is complete not to mention the

[6:07] fact that we're requiring humans with human error

[6:10] capacity to give us a reading and for us to accurately put it into our

[6:15] software as well so i think this is by far a step in the

[6:19] right direction two of the vendors that we also talked

[6:22] to showed us how their software works and it stores data for you know one of

[6:29] them was like 30 days one of them was six months and it stores

[6:33] data for that long so we can go back if we do

[6:35] multiple times a week just drive around and collect data we have that data

[6:39] stored for multiple months so we could potentially catch if somebody's having a

[6:43] water leak you know they had this many gallons at this point in the

[6:47] month but all of a sudden they're at twenty thousand and we're

[6:49] like well something happened between these ten days

[6:52] something happened just maybe would you fill a pool you know we can determine

[6:55] what happened but it'll also tell us if a meter goes

[6:58] offline for some reason so we'll know that you know something's

[7:03] not reading it's not reading right and it'll tell us that it's not reading

[7:06] right so and they're ready

[7:09] so we're opening this up to be eligible for

[7:13] radio and for a dedicated signal that's one of the reasons why we're

[7:18] doing a best value proposal system they will need to show us what system

[7:23] works for the value based on the warranty as well so right

[7:28] now to the vendors that we've talked to most frequently

[7:31] one uses the radio read the other uses that dedicated

[7:35] signal and there's a big difference in price what kind of signal is it so

[7:41] the the kind of generic radio read signal is like on the open frequency

[7:47] like it's a regular like literal public domain

[7:50] the other one is a proprietary signal that the company

[7:54] bought that's just for that signal so it's like a laser beam

[7:57] from their product to their software which is great in our business right

[8:04] and in this case that company has been around for like 60 years or something

[8:09] has been around about that long if not longer

[8:12] i mean it seems to make more sense to go with something that isn't proprietary

[8:16] because then you know if you're unhappy with your

[8:20] service provider it's a radio frequency red meter at least

[8:35] so what we're looking for tonight is just approval of actually going out to

[8:39] start this process it looks like by megan's

[8:42] schedule the next time this would be in front of

[8:45] you would be may 18th to actually approve a project and i think at that

[8:50] time it wouldn't be unreasonable to even bring in these

[8:53] vendors since you know they're people that are going to be working hard around

[8:57] town for an extended period of time yeah because the neighborhood

[9:02] we're not doing that ourselves again we've structured this to be open either

[9:06] way i've heard some good horror stories of

[9:09] hiring one company to do it all and i've also heard horror stories of

[9:13] not so that's just some of the questions that we'd go through in the interview

[9:16] process but oftentimes we would hire just say

[9:21] company a and they would likely find local subs

[9:24] to do the physical install anyway um which was i think what both

[9:29] vendors said that they would likely do

[10:00] yes as jason and meyer come up i'll just kind of introduce this

[10:04] um quickly i apologize for the late ad we worked really hard over the last

[10:10] few days and weeks to make sure that the numbers we're giving you

[10:13] are accurate and solid and so that we would have the confidence

[10:18] to basically say hey this pay increase is not only

[10:21] justified and needed to staff but we can back it with the performance of the

[10:25] store so what you have in front of you again

[10:29] meyer and jason will address but it is an increase to part-time wages

[10:33] as well as the consultant agreement take it away gang

[10:36] wonderful thank you hello mr mayor and counselors good evening

[10:42] i am here tonight to propose a part-time staff wage increase um excuse me

[10:48] currently part-time employees number one let me back up one

[10:51] second i'm here to ensure attract and retain talented public

[10:56] servants that's what i'm doing here today

[11:10] our proposed increase is hourly wage of 1336

[11:14] per hour i would also kindly ask you to entertain the additional

[11:19] consideration of having what we would call a shift lead

[11:23] or someone who could um we've consistently been experiencing

[11:36] and of course not surprising both my staff currently and their second or

[11:48] a shift lead with extra responsibilities with an added compensate compensation of

[11:52] 1466 per hour thank you very much so iron can you just

[11:59] accordingly so uh what types of things are you either not

[12:05] able to get to because of covering the pressure

[12:15] this would be the person who would absolutely cover anything

[12:18] downstairs if i was to be upstairs and as rentals begin to happen

[12:22] i find myself doing more bookings tours um and

[12:26] contact with with that in the social events and respects as well

[12:30] um it's very hard for me to be at the store

[12:33] alone solo honestly until two or three in the afternoon anymore

[12:36] we're just so busy we're so much busier than we ever have been

[12:40] and i'm so happy for that um but i find myself kind of swirling some of these

[12:44] so having someone who can cover myself and even me just taking a vacation

[12:48] and having a few days of time off honestly to be honest um currently have

[12:54] no one to cover day shifts for me at this point

[12:57] and so this would be someone that could definitely take off a few extra

[13:00] responsibilities not just opening and closing

[13:03] as all part-time staff do but someone could actually make a decision and

[13:07] what i would do in in particular um instances as far as like deliveries and

[13:11] just the daily ordering processes and things contact

[13:15] with jason and things like that so then

[13:20] yes or actually it would be nice to have that person on saturdays as well

[13:24] to be to be another support on the weekends but i believe capping at 30

[13:28] hours um for what we would ask

[13:46] getting to with the current structure there's not an assistant manager so

[13:51] there's not a whole lot of in-house redundancy if she's worked to

[13:55] be gone take a vacation be sick so this person

[13:59] would be you know we're kind of shift lead

[14:02] because we're not going to make like another full-time position but they

[14:04] would have responsibilities similar to myra's life

[14:08] we would have the appropriate conversation right

[14:11] you've actually choose your backup for those decisions i mean

[14:14] you know

[14:17] even things like just off the top like an example oh that

[14:20] that person would know if something came wrong or we could really bring that back

[14:25] or you know return things or just keep it very smooth

[14:28] on a day-to-day basis if it wasn't there knowing

[14:31] those type of other um kind of operations what we do what would i do

[14:37] daily i know you're going to open that up

[14:39] applicants or i mean is this somebody

[14:55] but if we need to i am actually currently hiring as well so

[14:58] do you think that keeping it open is winner

[15:02] well i mean you know look around town i mean you're competing for part-time

[15:08] help from every other business entitlement hires

[15:11] part-time employees and you know some of those probably have

[15:15] better hours you know so it's a little bit more attractive for

[15:18] people so you're kind of competing with those things you can change too

[15:22] so um i mean it makes sense

[15:39] again i apologize for the late ad but so we attempted to kind of do like our own

[15:44] mini salary study with this too we would be at the higher end of

[15:49] part-time retail in howard lake but if you do like the

[15:53] similar for liquor stores if you use the metro mexi

[15:59] metro metric we're down by like five bucks or something crazy

[16:02] if you use the out state one we're right in line once we do

[16:06] this adjustment meyer and i have been doing

[16:10] a lot of interviews the last couple of months and i think

[16:14] you know this increase would help retain some good employment we've had some good

[16:18] ones around the last couple months find

[16:21] anything a couple of dollars

[16:28] whatever you know people from dazzle or potato or we just have

[16:36] makes it a little bit easier to say i'm going to drive out there for

[16:39] sure you know 13 and a half dollars an hour rather than

[16:44] 11. right right okay

[16:59] yes they would need a motion oh i thought we're gonna do it all together

[17:03] yeah one motion for everything else what are we talking about

[17:07] um jason oh yeah absolutely we could do that i'm sorry i thought i kind of went

[17:10] over that so this would take his monthly engagement from 700 to a

[17:14] thousand okay um and again just a reminder under the

[17:19] current proposal with jason specifically we both both sides have a 30-day opt-out

[17:24] so if jason said pound sand howard lake or howard lake

[17:28] said pound sand there's a 30-day notification period to that

[17:41] um i'm not good with words so we would like megan

[17:48] yeah so again jason's been doing great kind of doing the grand overseeing

[17:52] czar of operations helping us with buying specifically

[17:56] um we're still kind of fine-tuning making sure that he's spending some time

[18:00] in-house as well collectively these two have just been

[18:04] kicking butt for the store and our numbers show it

[18:07] so and this consulting agreement is with you personally not

[18:10] with the city of bubble right is that that's correct

[18:14] we still have a separate enforced gpa right

[18:17] uh but really that's more informed at this point when the meat and potatoes of

[18:21] that agreement was about myron jason right and now when we

[18:24] brought myra back with coven that's when we readjusted that

[18:28] consultant well that's more about the buying power

[18:31] too

[18:34] okay

[18:41] i i mean the the the well the that net or that increase of

[18:45] 16 uh i mean i think it's set in here the

[18:49] the total cost consequence how does that sit with

[18:52] where we're projecting all i mean i know we know what we did last

[18:56] year but it sounds like we're still projecting to keep

[18:59] things going so that's right beautiful question jason that's exactly why

[19:04] the next item talks about the budget i'm just going to do a sneak preview with

[19:08] this we've included the wages jason and i have all but beat the hell

[19:13] out of each other on how we come up with assumptions and

[19:15] projections and we're still showing a net profit

[19:20] in 2021 of 99 000 thousand dollars mind you last year was phenomenal and

[19:28] that was about 85 i think 85 or 87 somewhere in that neighborhood um so

[19:33] this shows like a modest increase from that which

[19:36] we're learning we're fine-tuning there's lumps and bumps but again

[19:39] that includes that additional wage okay so

[19:43] and assuming when you model that out you factor your powers

[19:46] over time yes because i mean you know a little bit of over overtime

[19:52] she to her point she was getting too much overtime and i think myra for

[19:57] being the william soldier that she is that at a moment's notice when someone

[20:01] calls him sick frankly it's meyer that has to fill that

[20:04] shift and that leads to overtime but that has a cost consequence

[20:08] so again part of that a lot of other non-costs

[20:13] yeah so a big part of this is like that overall ecosystem hopefully we get

[20:18] more part-time help we're paying them better they stick around they do their

[20:21] part but we're also compensating for that that in return

[20:25] um but we're also saying myro this is a spreadsheet that we're using to track

[20:29] your hours for part-time this is a spreadsheet that we're using to track

[20:33] your hours um so there's accountability built into that

[20:37] absolutely i'm also ready to be to do evaluations

[20:41] as well so start part-time evaluations for everyone

[20:45] scheduled already so this is kind of a little off topic but when you have a

[20:50] turnover i mean what would you say is the reason do you think people

[20:53] i mean obviously it's it's part-time employment there's always going to be

[20:57] some turnover right because people just leave but

[20:59] you know i mean do you think the pay is a factor do you think it's just kind of

[21:03] a broad spectrum of reasons that i can't really um sometimes it's the pain

[21:07] um i would say because other people they say oh i got a little bit more going

[21:11] over here you know taking that raise

[21:16] um sometimes it's your family or other things um

[21:20] sometimes they're like i don't need three jobs

[21:25] so there's every type of situation and this is the easiest one for us to

[21:29] control i mean if it's not working conditions or

[21:32] you know hours or you know management right

[21:36] management customers i can see her staff when this goes into yeah

[21:44] i did actually yes yep three actually yes but still looking for one

[21:51] or three

[21:55] yeah okay

[22:08] i'll make a motion is there

[22:38] okay this is you know forecasting is the hardest

[22:43] part of this job and and last year with kovid it made it just

[22:48] almost impossible

[22:52] enough water water's been under the bridge here for the first couple months

[22:55] of the year we've got a pretty good idea of how the

[22:58] year is going to look i think going forward um and the big thing was

[23:02] was covid you know was this a bubble that we

[23:06] went through and i think it probably is not and it's

[23:09] because we're seeing a lot of um consistency in terms of week to week

[23:14] sales and um you know this coming week that we're in

[23:19] right now is the week that everything blew up last year

[23:23] and we had that massive week of panic buying and you know we're not going to

[23:26] have that again but you know as i i mean it's crazy

[23:31] i look at these days that was a huge day so that was great for last year but for

[23:37] this year you know obviously we've got a bigger hill to climb

[23:39] you know when we're looking at these numbers so where

[23:43] what i did was i took our current um growth rate of about 20 year-to-date

[23:50] and i looked out a little bit ahead and um

[23:53] you know this week we're never going to hit that number of this is a 28 29 000

[23:58] sales week we've been we've been hovering in the 17

[24:01] 000 range since the first of the year so we're right now 20 percent ahead we've

[24:07] got this hill we're gonna you know we're cruising out soon we're gonna hit we're

[24:10] not gonna make it over this week but after this week we go back to about

[24:14] 18 000 as far as last year's numbers and then

[24:18] the campers come so right i figured let's look at 10

[24:23] growth for the year because it still shows significant growth which i think

[24:26] is going to happen here um but it's not over the top you know

[24:31] so uh well by the time i did that i just added ten percent onto all the sales

[24:36] categories uh we are going to be giving away less

[24:39] money this year in the area of discounts so the loyalty

[24:44] program's gone

[24:48] have you had any backlash on that has there been i mean i'm sure right away

[24:52] there was some but a little bit um people were excited about our holiday

[24:58] um giveaway type of thing where you put

[25:00] your little see i'd like to do that more often maybe even just twice a year

[25:04] maybe fourth of july or even once early just put a big

[25:07] pandemic anniversary absolutely you don't put something up nice yes

[25:12] we made it we should have really done that up this week oh no

[25:15] um but i think that they like that as well

[25:19] so winning things and i think we can yeah in respects of doing that keeping

[25:22] loyal customers so every time they come in they still

[25:25] drop that receipt in and they're going to and you took receipts from the other

[25:29] businesses in town too which i i mean that's a really nice touch

[25:32] thank you you know that's yeah thank you kind of pull it out together

[25:36] so sorry i interrupted it but yes so it's essentially just kind of breaking

[25:41] things down for a 10 growth rate for for sales same thing with cost of sales

[25:46] and um it works out to about a 28 gross

[25:49] profit which is a little ambitious but i like

[25:52] having to you know reach for things and uh then adding the 160 000

[25:58] in wages here which is um kind of been the the biggest struggle

[26:01] with the whole thing um as far as expenses you know everything else is

[26:05] ticked up a smidge um as expected for year-over-year increases um so we we're

[26:12] looking at a potential profit of around was it 100

[26:16] 000 uh for for the year which is in line

[26:20] with my historical returns of you know around

[26:24] 10 ish percent over uh total sales so optimistically

[26:31] that's where we're at and i feel pretty solid that this is

[26:35] as good a projection as i can possibly give

[26:38] given the what i know right now about how the year is going to pan out

[26:42] and right and life going forward [Music]

[26:47] and we also expect some extra revenue to come in from the event center

[26:51] that's kind of a big question mark there um we're getting to yeah we we

[26:58] we got extra business from bars last year being closed

[27:01] but we also lost a lot of business from what's music festival

[27:05] absolutely women's stuff good neighborhoods

[27:09] yeah all the other things they're excited so i'm not that's why i'm

[27:13] confident that you know we're we're there's only enough

[27:17] business to get to one and a half ish million you know in

[27:21] this town i think that that's logistically where

[27:24] it's gonna realistically that's where it's gonna be at

[27:26] and we're 80 of the way there yeah you know as it is right now so

[27:34] and when you talk about added revenue from the events that i mean

[27:37] we're talking because of beer and liquor sales at those events

[27:41] obviously the rental fee because we made that correct

[27:46] and it's separate from the liquor operation budget as well right and i was

[27:49] going to ask about that because we don't have to keep them together we

[27:52] okay it is a yes that goes to general fund correct yeah

[27:57] so it does have a couple weddings booked for

[28:00] fall so that's exciting and hopefully they get to

[28:04] stay on yeah we just we just postponed for the second time now so

[28:09] oh so hopefully fall is still good for people

[28:13] yeah but notice that to jason's point we're being conservative so there's no

[28:17] revenue anticipated for cell shield yeah which

[28:20] that's good yeah i mean at the same time you

[28:24] probably don't have any expenses anticipate either that might happen if

[28:28] you get some used so sorry oh that's okay i was just curious

[28:32] about um it seemed like everything through covid in this last 12 months

[28:37] that the demand on certain products became so

[28:41] great that the prices all rose and we're still seeing that like right now steel

[28:45] is crazy steel is of 30 40 50 since december but right how

[28:50] has has it affected the cost of the goods at all in the last 12 months

[28:56] what is what's the cost is it just been flat the whole time or

[29:00] no pretty much i haven't seen a lot of increases you've been switching over to

[29:03] some of these facilities and making hand sanitizer

[29:06] right right yeah great well a lot of those podcasts

[29:11] right black is all about fairy tales you can make it today and sell tomorrow and

[29:15] charge whatever you do

[29:19] pretty easy

[29:22] for that blood to be spilling no normal model beer increases

[29:26] you know twice annually usually now so beer increases at least

[29:30] annually and now it just did as well so there was more supply issues that we ran

[29:34] into a lot of canning issues there's an

[29:36] aluminum shortage as well right now sure um and people don't want bottles

[29:41] sometimes so yeah yeah okay they're they're choosing

[29:43] other you know um products margarita next was in short

[29:47] supply yep it's right now tonic water gone forever that was fine

[29:52] was

[30:03] and now that will be an everyday selection so that's wonderful

[30:06] all year round

[30:10] okay so you're asking that we approve this budget is that what's happening

[30:15] here yes please

[30:19] well counsel anything else for jason and myra

[30:23] all right we will entertain a motion then

[30:27] we have emotions there a second we have a motion and a second any further

[30:31] discussion from the council happy birthday

[30:33] all those in favor signify saying aye

[30:39] thank you good evening yeah good job guys have a good night guys

[30:46] all right enemy consider approving quotes for installation of carpet at

[30:49] city hall yes so included on a 2021 cip

[30:54] we have carpeting here at city hall we sought quotes the low quote was floor

[31:01] value of howard lake at 16 and basically that would provide carpet

[31:08] tiles for every piece of carpet within

[31:11] eyesight you can look around you're starting to

[31:15] see seams stains um looking back at the specs i had to do

[31:20] that for something else we actually bought 10-year carpet and we're at about

[31:23] 15 now so it's just one of them things yeah it's looking

[31:27] pretty worn yeah and it was exciting to see um we i think

[31:32] we ended up like with four or five quotes and it was nice to see that

[31:36] floor value right out of town here was the local yeah that is nice

[31:40] so so that's everywhere right back front the one area that it doesn't include is

[31:44] the police department just because there's

[31:46] so much stuff back there to move and get around

[31:50] um congrats yeah yeah well they're just sardines in there um

[31:56] but otherwise it's the i.t conference room console chambers

[32:00] reception admin um hallways and that sort of thing

[32:08] okay yeah all right we will entertain a motion

[32:15] we have emotions there a second a second we have a motion and a second ending for

[32:19] the discussion from the council all those in favor signify by saying aye

[32:23] aye closed motion carries item k there's no old

[32:28] business administrators report anything else to

[32:30] report to us nicholas uh no thank you okay then we will entertain a motion to

[32:34] adjourn we have emotions there second second

[32:39] promotion and a second ending for the discussion from the council

[32:42] all those in favor signify by saying aye opposed

[32:46] meeting adjourned

Howard Lake City Council Meeting

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