[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