[This transcript was generated automatically from audio using AI and hasn't been reviewed by a person -- it can contain mistakes, including plausible-sounding sentences that were never actually said. Treat it as a starting point, not a verbatim record.]

[0:44] All right. It is 6.30. So I will call the September work session of the city council to order. The first item on the agenda is approval of the agenda. I'll make a motion. We approve the agenda as sprinted. The second is my. My kids. Yep. My kids. Okay. So we we need to do.
[1:06] roll call votes tonight? Because Mike is at 10. You can skip it if you want. I don't have to vote.
[1:13] You might want to vote. You don't know what's going on here.
[1:16] I don't know. So I'll just do this anyway. Kirsten.
[1:21] All right. Jim. Aye. Mike. Aye. Steve is aye. Motion carries.
[1:28] Carmar Watershed Road Improvement Cost Share Request. Kyle. Yes, we briefly touched on this
[1:34] at our last meeting, council had some questions regarding the projects specifically, you know,
[1:42] was it designed, why is it failing so quickly after construction, was the design issue,
[1:47] was it just a soil correction issue, we went back to the watershed, asked them for some
[1:53] updated information, which was added to your packet yesterday morning.
[1:58] Long in the short of it is the watershed and their engineer have been trying to address
[2:02] this issue for a year. They first started discussing it in September of last year.
[2:09] They had a couple meetings on it at the watershed, none of which we were made aware of or invited to.
[2:18] There seems to be some discrepancy about who is responsible for the failure.
[2:25] Based on the information provided, it appears that the engineer
[2:30] is somewhat blaming the conditions of the road and the fact that they couldn't
[2:34] design it in the manner that they wanted to because the city wouldn't allow
[2:37] them to put a drain across the center of the road. We've asked the water should
[2:43] for information on what was accepted at the time of construction whether or not
[2:50] it was installed correctly and if so or if not who signed off on any of that and they
[2:54] have not provided any of that information.
[2:59] Well, what do you mean by the center of the road?
[3:02] So they re-crowned the road on the north end of Larksburg and Layton.
[3:08] They re-crowned it to transfer water to the new storm water basins that they built.
[3:14] And that crown did not end up where they wanted it to based on the settling of the road.
[3:21] The question is how why did it settle in the manner that it did that's prohibiting the
[3:27] water from flowing in the intended direction.
[3:32] It could be a design issue, it could be poor construction, it could actually be settlement,
[3:39] but if you're settling this quickly, you're not compacting your soils appropriately prior
[3:44] to paving.
[3:47] I don't think there's an issue with faulty material, although there is a large section
[3:52] of curb that was taken out already, so I say we were at the site visit, you had some
[3:57] ideas of that being quality of concrete, if I remember correctly?
[4:03] Yeah, I don't know that concrete, the issue I have with concrete when we looked at it was
[4:09] like they were honey coming up in the buildings.
[4:14] Thank you.
[4:15] When we looked at the concrete, it looked like it was honey coming up in the back where it
[4:18] was exposed, which means it didn't knife the concrete properly, so if a plower
[4:21] had come through, it could crack more easily. I doubt that relate or parlayed into
[4:26] the drainage issue, but without the watershed conducting an as-built survey,
[4:30] like we requested it's impossible for us to know if it was even installed per the
[4:33] design. So when we were out there, it did look like the curve was installed high. It
[4:38] didn't appear that there was much of a crown out there at all. I don't know why
[4:41] that is without seeing an as-built survey, but we had talked about was a slight
[4:45] alignment of that curb and removing the stuff that had the honey combing behind it and then
[4:50] potentially adjusting the catch base and even slightly down to allow them to crown it more.
[4:55] To get it, essentially off the road quicker because it is Steve coming around that curve.
[4:59] Doing that won't stop 100% of the water from getting to the curb. It's just so Steve down
[5:04] that road that you can't crown it quickly enough to get 100% of it off. But when we were out there,
[5:08] it looked like water from the northwest side of that curve all the way around. None of it was getting
[5:13] to the curb line which should not be the case. So what we proposed was essentially allowing
[5:18] them to crown it more than what was out there. Again, likely should have been done during
[5:22] design. We don't know how much higher it was installed versus the design without them doing
[5:26] as build survey. So how much are you talking like two or three inches? Yeah, at the CB, it would
[5:32] be about two inches. They had one full ring on that CB that could be removed.
[5:38] just over the road.
[5:41] Just overlaying the road? Yeah, just overlay the road to build up a
[5:44] crown.
[5:47] Doing that would be you'd still have to cut into the road one way or another, but
[5:51] to do that you'd be crowning to the what is the north side of the curb line by doing that and
[5:57] not recrowning in general by lowering the curb on the north side. You're going to make the slope
[6:00] on the south side of the road excessive. So by dropping that other curb you can keep the crown
[6:05] on uniforms, so it's like 2% or 2% or something along those lines rather than essentially overlaying it and making the north side 2%, but now the south side is 5% or 6%.
[6:17] Well, they drive like a racetrack down there, like in diesel.
[6:20] So who is the contract between?
[6:24] The previous product or the EOR?
[6:26] Well, EOR was the designer, obviously it's a watershed project that the city agreed to
[6:30] cost share with the contractor. The project had to leave was Dressel contracting.
[6:34] I think because this was done a while ago, I saw that they only had a one year warranty on that project,
[6:38] which is why they're coming out the quotes. I think it was, I can't remember now.
[6:42] I think it was Meyer who was the lowest, bitter and whole.
[6:44] How is that correct?
[6:45] So that's what they're trying to get into now to correct it.
[6:47] So is the one year warranty normal?
[6:52] All of our projects are two year warranties.
[6:54] I don't know if watershed projects are all that way or not.
[6:56] All of our three projects less is two year warranties.
[6:59] Do we know if it was negotiated?
[7:01] We didn't have a hand in the go.
[7:03] We were not, we were consulted on the design,
[7:07] but we were not involved in the watershed
[7:10] to lead on the project.
[7:11] So they did the bidding, they did the bid review,
[7:14] they did the awarding, all the contracts were with the watershed.
[7:16] and they signed contract.
[7:17] And they signed contract?
[7:19] Yep.
[7:20] You win that they first find the problem within the one-year warranty period I'm assuming.
[7:24] I just been talking about it for another year and a half.
[7:27] It would have been around the one-year time frame.
[7:29] I couldn't tell you exactly when.
[7:32] I think there was coordination between the watershed and the resident prior to us getting involved.
[7:37] I think our first walkthrough of it was, right, our only walkthrough of it with the watershed I think was last fall.
[7:44] We had some correspondence with the watershed before that, throughout the year, I'm trying to get us requesting them to do as bill surveys to see if this was even required that we do the walkthrough, but the actual issue I believe is from the year prior, which is probably
[7:57] was probably within the year of the project getting done, but it would have been on the back end of that.
[8:02] Okay, because I'm just, you know, if the issue was brought up and it's just been taking a while to work through it, I would
[8:10] Think that there's still another contract of warranty, but
[8:14] That's something with the watershed to bring up with Dressel as well
[8:16] I don't know if they've had those discussions or not
[8:18] Again, we aren't the city is signed on as a cautious to spend for that project
[8:22] But we aren't really involved with anything else beyond that from administration to inspection all of that was run through the watershed and their engineer
[8:29] So does watershed have legal counsel?
[8:31] So, I don't see what role we have in this.
[8:38] So they want us to be a fun part of the problem, and I don't know why we would.
[8:42] Well, I'm looking at this as if the issue is discovered, it's always to me like it was
[8:46] either within or very near that one year window, and we just, so to speak, talking about
[8:52] it for a long time.
[8:53] It doesn't mean it's out of the world to be very, because the event was, as a standard
[9:00] to have one year for something like that?
[9:03] Again, for our stuff.
[9:04] So, I mean, bullet and bank projects through the city.
[9:07] All of our stuff is two years.
[9:09] I don't know if the watershed is typically one year or not,
[9:11] but all of our warranties for our street projects are two years.
[9:16] I did see in the email that was provided in the packet,
[9:19] like I and Z did state explicitly.
[9:21] That was a one year warranty.
[9:22] So, that must be what they have stated in that contract.
[9:27] So, if we say we're not going to participate,
[9:29] is that mean the watershed is not going to do anything?
[9:34] We would push on them to still make the correction.
[9:37] It needs to be corrected either way.
[9:39] Again, I think the debate is definitely worth having whether or not they should pay for or not.
[9:44] But the correction should be made, whether we contribute at all.
[9:49] I can't think of any road in town where we have a drain across the road.
[9:53] So what they wanted us to do, it is so unusual that we would say no anyway.
[9:59] And the water shed, I mean, they're the ones that got, they're in the contract, we're,
[10:04] you know, simply kind of like a silent partner most if we're not involved directly.
[10:10] So, do we want to, do we got a couple options presented to us, approve a percentage of cost share,
[10:17] table for future discussion, not sure there's other options out there.
[10:22] How about, we asked the water shed to pursue its professional obligation to making a claim on
[10:27] in the insurance against this, against this project.
[10:31] Is that a motion?
[10:32] It's a motion.
[10:32] I'll second that.
[10:34] Okay, all those in favor, I will roll call.
[10:37] Kirsten.
[10:38] Aye.
[10:38] Jim.
[10:39] Aye.
[10:40] Mike.
[10:41] Aye.
[10:42] And Steve is an aye.
[10:43] I just want to make sure, I just want to make sure
[10:46] I'm getting the motion right, you want to ask the watersheds
[10:48] to pursue a claim against the contractor?
[10:51] Against the insurance of the contractor.
[10:53] Resuming this, every project should be bonded and insured, right?
[10:56] And if it was made within the proper timelines, they should be pursuing this through the insurance.
[11:03] For what we assume to be faulty construction?
[11:06] Yeah,
[11:08] I shouldn't fail that quickly, absolutely.
[11:14] Point of clarification, the road isn't cracking at that location.
[11:18] And we don't know sitting here if it was a faulty install or staked incorrectly.
[11:23] We just don't really part of it.
[11:25] Exactly.
[11:26] And we don't know that.
[11:26] The only way that we could know that is if they did additional information provided
[11:29] it to us, but again, the cause of it, I don't know if it matters to us as much as it does
[11:35] to them in this claim.
[11:37] It's just, you know, a city is showing whether or not we are participating in costs.
[11:39] We just don't feel responsible that we should be paying for it, if it was part of their project,
[11:43] they should have a remedy.
[11:46] Okay.
[11:48] Good enough?
[11:49] Does it make sense for us to look at taking something like that over if we're worried about the
[11:56] way they're handling it? Not now, because they've already got her money. I mean, they
[12:04] already did that. I'm not saying we should pay for it. I'm saying, are we confident
[12:08] they're not going to do it again? So the corrective action that we talked about in the field
[12:13] would be about as much as we can do to correct the issue and get the maximum amount of water
[12:18] to the curb lines without completely resetting the structures. And again, I don't know if
[12:23] that we warranted or not.
[12:24] But we can only move the structures so low
[12:26] with the actual structure itself
[12:28] because they have adjusting rings on them.
[12:29] So we can remove all of those to lower the curb line.
[12:32] Beyond that, we can't do any more
[12:33] without completely essentially
[12:35] we'd be doing it which I think is beyond the scope
[12:36] what we would be looking for at this time.
[12:39] So that's really about the maximum
[12:40] that they could do.
[12:42] So as long as they do that,
[12:44] which we would be able to easily check afterwards,
[12:47] okay, that seems like it would solve
[12:48] the issue to the extent possible.
[12:50] Okay.
[12:51] So moving on to the draft RFP documents for engineering and legal services?
[13:00] Yeah, I'll put together some draft RFPs here for engineering and legal services.
[13:11] We did just so the direction of council was anything we haven't done in RFP for in the last five years.
[13:18] We did prosecuting services and planning in 2022 so they will be up next year and then
[13:28] next year we will also do auditing services because I think we're in the final year of
[13:33] a three-year agreement with the auditor.
[13:35] But engineering and legal have not been done since the early 2010s so I put together documents
[13:42] Once for you has discussed at the meeting the last meeting and notified both our engineering
[13:47] firm and our legal services firm that these were coming before you, engineering firm
[13:53] has put together a memo that is in the packet here addressing the RFPs here.
[14:01] Our legal provider did not put together a formal memo but we did have conversations and she
[14:08] Yes, that I relay just some journal.
[15:00] Local information to you guys about the difference between where they are currently bidding RFP services
[15:06] versus what our current rates are. I will let Bolton and Ming speak for themselves, but
[15:13] Eckburn-Lomers has indicated that they are more than willing to sit down or discuss a two or three year contract for services, extending our services based on the rates we have, and that they're
[15:27] Bids right now for RFPs are generally about 20% higher than what we currently pay.
[15:35] The market also dictates that any meetings attended by the attorneys are done at an
[15:43] hourly rate, including travel time.
[15:47] Our, we are billed a flat rate for meetings regardless of the length of the meeting.
[15:53] So that could have an effect as well on the overall cost of that service.
[15:59] But as they are generally, they recently responded to an RFP for the city of Mora.
[16:03] And general attorney's fees were $245 an hour and we're at 205.
[16:12] And they're a paralegal services were 165 and they were at 140 based on the latest bill that we received.
[16:24] Development, any work that they do related to development is passed through and is done at
[16:29] a separate rate, the private rate of the attorney, which is generally higher than what they
[16:36] built us.
[16:38] They said if they, so that's their response to this, if they do have to respond to an RFP
[16:45] from the city, they will generally work towards those market rates as opposed to the rates
[16:49] that were currently being charged.
[16:56] With that, I'll let Bolton Ming address their thoughts on this.
[17:02] Ryan, if you're right, I'll jump in and then you can add in if you want.
[17:07] Similar statement as well as presented by your legal counsel.
[17:11] I won't go through the whole memo.
[17:12] You guys get the six page breakdown of all the numbers and everything.
[17:16] A couple of things that we just touched on that we can help to essentially cut costs in town
[17:20] to try to be more efficient is just one or time in the city.
[17:23] In my experience, we have here familiarity with city standards, inspection practices,
[17:28] the staff as well, kind of all of that lends itself to overall lower costs, as well as having your city planner here helps a lot with the correspond all the time where you can have discussions and kind of get to where we need to quicker than we would if there was multiple firms involved.
[17:41] Our funding group plays a huge part in what we do here as well, obviously they helped a bit with the gateway, as did Ryan specifically for all of that funding, as well as the bliss project getting those funds.
[17:53] It's as far as the non-large systems go, which are going to get most of the dollars when those funds come around in those grants.
[18:00] Take away the large systems, the Rochester, the Mancado, the Deluce, and those different cities.
[18:04] Of the small cities remaining, Boltona Manc got like 74% of all the funding in the state.
[18:09] So it comes to that, we're really second to none with what we can provide there.
[18:14] The rates that we do charge for projects are all inclusive.
[18:16] So if we have survey, things like that, you're paying obviously the surveyer to come out.
[18:20] We are paying for the equipment, the drive time, or things like that, all things that are just provided under that, you know, his service,
[18:26] such things that we provide, and then we don't do markups on the different invoicing and things like that as well if we have to bring in some design or just some contractors for our own projects.
[18:34] So all that kind of lends itself to trying to lower costs, and then kind of highlights what we have in the memo.
[18:41] We do know charge currently for city council meetings, meetings beyond that, like specialised committee meetings we do it the general reduced rate.
[18:50] which is well below what we prevent or provide to other RFPs that go out currently.
[18:58] Really both are, I don't know that there's many non-Ryan clients that get free city council meetings that we do.
[19:06] So we did that we would extend the general engineering to 30 hours, which the city doesn't typically hit the 24 anyways,
[19:11] but with less projects coming up over the next couple of years, you may be using more general engineering.
[19:16] Those are not already here for different things so it may come in handy actually over the next two years
[19:21] And then obviously we have been here at rate locking as well Ryan and myself. So Ryan's been late rate locked for at least since
[19:26] 2018 in Skandia and then mine would be through
[19:30] 2028 then as well with Ryan's as part of our submission for 2027
[19:34] so
[19:36] Think that's pretty short and sweet Ryan. I'll let you add any more on top of that
[19:54] forward.
[19:58] Is your mic on, Brian? Thank you.
[20:04] Yeah, tonight, we're here tonight just to show our
[20:07] gratification to want to continue working with you guys
[20:09] in the city. We've compromised some stuff in our
[20:13] letter that we prepared to you. We're willing to honor some things
[20:16] that will make them better. To obviously avoid an RPG
[20:19] just because that's our cost and time not going to that stuff.
[20:22] The general engineering rate that we currently have with you
[20:25] that we will continue with. That hasn't been offered to any community for five plus years.
[20:31] It's that low. So we're often went in proposals, much higher general engineering rates and
[20:38] charging for all means. City Council means lump sum charges. Just to try to offset some of the,
[20:44] obviously, the increased costs, inflations and stuff like that. I like my rates. I'm a principal
[20:51] I have authority to do that, and I have proposed to lock Isaiah's rate two.
[20:58] If I go out for a proposal right now, my rate's 225. Right now you get in 179,
[21:03] and you've been locked in at that for what you look into that.
[21:08] You can find it at least 2018, it may have been.
[21:10] So we've proposed a lock, I raised that for Isaiah and I self through 2028.
[21:16] and then General Engineering will just continue as is.
[21:19] If we do a girl from R.P., we would have to adjust that.
[21:22] We can't keep out that low.
[21:25] But big picture wise, the amount of funding that we have brought
[21:28] to the community is big time, right?
[21:32] I've been down at the lobby before some of you guys have been
[21:35] in the seats chasing money for the Gateway Trail.
[21:38] And now to see it all evolve.
[21:40] And we still got more and more momentum on other things going.
[21:43] one, we just want to be able to continue that and keep moving forward.
[21:47] And being in a community, I've been very conscious about being complacent.
[21:52] We're always trying to find better ways to do things for you guys, and
[21:55] the examples of that are the grading permits, soil borings.
[21:59] You know, it went from less old soil borings for projects right before the project.
[22:04] Then it was, let's do two years with the projects that we're getting with our prices to evolve
[22:08] and then to grow up in a trading radar.
[22:10] So my point is we're always looking to evolve and become more efficient and find better ways to do things for the community to see you guys dollars.
[22:17] So I think we've brought a lot of good information in the packet, definitely if you guys have any questions, I don't want to just sit here and
[22:23] stand and keep talking about stuff that you don't know what I'm talking about, so I'm definitely here for Q&A tonight.
[22:31] But just to show how passionate we are for this community, we want to continue that moving forward.
[22:35] Thank you.
[22:37] I just want to make sure everybody knows this isn't an attack on either of our consulting
[22:42] firms.
[22:43] It's really more of a standard of practice that we should be doing on a regular basis
[22:49] just making sure that we are getting the best bang for our buck from all of our contractors.
[22:54] So I appreciate all the stuff that you've submitted and with that I'm going to let my other council
[23:00] members speak.
[23:01] Well, I will echo what Mayor Cron Miller says.
[23:05] I think it's just good business practice to, you know, see what's going on out in the
[23:10] world as an attorney.
[23:14] I, in legal services and lobbying, I regularly combed the secretary of states in the league
[23:20] of Minnesota City's RFPs just kind of keep an eye on what's going out there who's looking
[23:26] for what, kind of what the rates are, that type of stuff.
[23:29] So, when we talked about this last month, again, it was just as more as much as in good business practice.
[23:37] Yeah, I would agree with this. We're just doing our due diligence and like you are looking at the RFPs.
[23:44] I've talked to other communities as well and stuff like that. So this is mostly just kind of making sure that we're doing the best for our citizens.
[23:52] This isn't only about your organization directly in any way.
[23:56] Okay. Mike, did you have anything you wanted to say?
[24:00] I just want to clarify something.
[24:02] So Ryan mentioned that they have to do an RFP then the rates are going to have to go up.
[24:08] Does that mean that we're just basically saying, okay,
[24:12] these other companies can submit whatever they have? And if it's not,
[24:17] like if you want to keep molding and make or the law firm then
[24:20] we would just not ask them to do an RFP and say at the current rates
[24:24] and you can help clarify that.
[24:26] We have not put the RFP documents out to the public yet.
[24:30] These are just presented to Council for review.
[24:33] So Council can decide based on the information they've heard
[24:36] tonight if they would like to publish the RFPs,
[24:39] or if they would like to work direct staff
[24:42] to work individually with Bolton and McKinneck-Berry-Lomers
[24:47] on bringing contracts for services forward for 27, 28
[24:52] and potentially 29 if they're willing to lock themselves into a rate for that long.
[24:58] So just to clarify one more time, so I don't understand. If we go to an RFP and we publish it,
[25:06] does that mean that let's say that Bolden Bank, you know, like working with them,
[25:10] there are rates, whatever are fine, that they're going to go up regardless because we did an RFP?
[25:17] The indication that I've received from Eggburg Lommers and as Ryan indicated tonight,
[25:21] If the city puts out an RFP for services for either of these two consulting services, the rates that we pay will be increased in response to the RFP.
[25:32] The city, as the RFP document state, has the right to not award an RFP.
[25:39] They can go through the process, put the publication out, interview candidates decide not to award anything.
[25:46] I can't speak for whether or not either company would then honor the current rates that they have.
[25:52] That would be something that they would have to work out.
[25:54] We have to work out with them after going through the process.
[25:57] So are we under any sort of contract right now or is it just a month-to-month type thing?
[26:02] I don't think we're under any sort of agreement with either provider at the moment.
[26:08] The national service agreement, you would have the ability to terminate it at any time.
[26:14] And you would, too. I mean, either profession either the city or the profession.
[26:20] If it terminates as well, obviously we had we went out of business, right? We would have to terminate it.
[26:27] I, I, I definitely like the idea of, you know, making sure that our, our rates are in line with the rest of the, you know, cities and whatnot.
[26:34] But I think it also makes sense to, you know, make sure you really take a hard thought and long thought about if our rates are going to go up
[26:44] By doing this doesn't make sense, you know, I'll be called around a little bit before doing an RFP
[26:50] Some of the other cities and said hey, where are you guys at? I think that would give us a
[26:56] Pretty good idea without actually going to RFP and keep our rates hopefully the same and appreciate the relationship we have now
[27:03] Is the thought
[27:05] One thing I would just like to quickly bring up to if we guys are gonna start exploring some of that
[27:10] It's more than just looking at the rates, right?
[27:12] A lot of engineering firms are going to build for surveying time, maybe even some office
[27:17] stuff, copying or whatever, and horrible wants a mileage.
[27:21] We know a lot of our competitors, when there's a subcontractor, like a geotechnical company
[27:26] doing soil borings or soil testing, they do the invoices through them, but they put a 10% mark
[27:32] upon them.
[27:33] We do not do that for you guys.
[27:35] So I just want to make sure that you're going to look at the big picture and not just
[27:40] I hope this guy's $5 cheaper, this guy's $10 cheaper.
[27:44] Yeah, it's not a road product. I hear we're seeing Ryan.
[27:48] So I guess my opinion would be before going to an RFP
[27:52] is to try to maybe do a little more groundwork
[27:54] and call around and just see where we're at.
[27:56] But, except you guys.
[27:58] Yeah, I guess before we go.
[28:01] We have someone in the audience.
[28:03] Do you want to talk to us about this, Greg?
[28:05] No.
[28:05] Okay.
[28:06] I just wanted to be inclusive here, I don't, so I'm not seeing anybody online either so yeah, I guess I would be inclined to ask staff to dive into the proposals from both of our current firms and see where that takes us before we make a decision to go out for an RFP.
[28:26] One final thing I would add as well, when looking at rates in general, like we've got guys who range, I mean there's $100 an hour that our employees range.
[28:35] So, we can always put cheaper hourly rates on Scandia Projects as well, but we kind of do an assessment on each project
[28:42] of how quickly can this person do it at this rate versus how quickly can this person do it at a lower rate?
[28:47] And then who's the cheapest at the end of the day?
[28:50] So, you know, we have times when hourly rate might be lower on somebody, but the overall project cost is not going
[28:55] to be lower. So, those are things that we kind of evaluate project to project to try to keep them down.
[28:59] And that's something that, you know, if you're just going to be tricky to compare, that pulls to apples.
[29:03] Yeah, especially like this we certainly we clearly understand the efficiencies you guys have with the with the experience of the of the city.
[29:13] We certainly work to get proposals professional sort of secret.
[30:00] Council at the next meeting. We'll see what both entities are proposing over the next couple of years before you guys make a decision. Okay. Is that agreeable? Yep. Yes. Mike? Yep. Sounds good. Yep. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Just in time, Chief.
[30:28] Capital improvement committee discussion.
[30:31] So the cabinet went from a committee's met twice this year at the last meeting that we had.
[30:41] We kind of got into the weeds of what council wants from this committee.
[30:48] It's been an ongoing topic over the last couple of years of what are we really doing?
[30:54] What are we really being asked to do?
[30:55] We seem to focus a lot of time on discussion related to roads and how much money we should spend on roads.
[31:01] and we brought up the idea or I brought up the idea at the last meeting based on
[31:06] council's response to the amount of debt that the city is currently carrying is
[31:11] perhaps this committee can look into drafting a debt policy that the city
[31:18] doesn't currently have and outline the amount of debt they think it would be
[31:23] appropriate for the city to carry and that again devolved into ongoing
[31:30] Knowing discussions here after your discussions of is debt good or bad, should we do everything with cash?
[31:35] And ultimately, one of our long standing committee members said before we day one any further with the committee they would really like to hear from council.
[31:43] What council would like to see or receive from this committee before they spend any more time guessing or making decisions that ultimately can be amended or
[31:56] overridden by the Council.
[31:58] We do not have the explicit discussion of this as an advisory committee and everything that they do can be overridden by Council.
[32:07] And that most of our committees are that way.
[32:12] But the committee generally agree that having direction from Council would be beneficial.
[32:18] As far as I know, it is the only committee that we have that does not have bylaws.
[32:23] I have not been able to find any.
[32:26] The closest thing we have found is this document right here that the mayor found that dates
[32:34] back to 2017 and does some outlining of what the CIP committee was tasked with at that
[32:43] time.
[32:46] So I don't necessarily need an answer from Council tonight, but this is something that
[32:50] was asked by the CIP committee of the council to provide them with the direction on what
[32:56] they should be focusing on moving forward, whether it's annual, semi-annual, whatever it
[33:01] ends up being.
[33:04] And so I leave it to you guys to provide them with guidance.
[33:06] Kyle and I have had a couple of conversations around the committee and the capital improvement
[33:12] plan over the last couple of years actually.
[33:17] And I think it would be who of us to put together a charter so that the committee understands
[33:23] what our expectations are up to them if there are any.
[33:28] But as we get into this, I found this document and I thought it was a very good explanation
[33:32] of what the capital improvement plan was and its purpose and the fact that it needs to be reviewed
[33:37] on a regular basis, it kind of talks about all those things that would go into a charter.
[33:42] or as we began talking about whether debt is good or bad,
[33:47] it seemed that it would be a really good thing
[33:50] to have some financial policies in place
[33:54] to help provide some guardrails.
[33:57] And I hope.
[33:57] I don't think financial policies that, you know,
[34:00] we could spend the rest of our lives,
[34:02] our children's lives and our grandchildren's lives
[34:04] improving roads.
[34:05] Maybe there are other things that we as a city
[34:08] and as a city council want to look at.
[34:10] When we're spending the taxpayer money, you know, I would after watching two different committee's struggle with charter, it's an academic exercise.
[34:23] If it's more than a paragraph long, it's too long. It really is.
[34:28] The bottom line is, is this the capital committee should come together to discuss the spending of the city and to look at the ways they can do to make sure that it's proper.
[34:39] I mean, but if you get into these, you know, three, four page documents, a holy moly.
[34:44] Well, traditionally, we were focused on projects that were over $10,000, not the operating
[34:49] budgets.
[34:50] Well, I first was talking about just the whole concept of a charter.
[34:56] Okay.
[34:56] I mean, you
[35:01] know, we were talking about, like in a separate venue right now or a separate
[35:05] area, we're talking about the city's comprehensive plan, which I know we all got a copy for
[35:11] our back pocket at all times so we can refer to it all the time. But it's just that. It's just
[35:15] a bunch of academic stuff. That's not how people actually operate. If they want to, they'll go back
[35:20] but pull it out of the back pocket when they need it to win an argument or something. But the bottom
[35:25] line is, you know, the capital improvement pretty is there to make sure we are being judicious
[35:31] in how we go forward. And I don't think we need to spend a lot of time on creating a charter that's
[35:37] on the academic exercise of well you are at the meeting and I wasn't but it sounds like they're not really sure what their
[35:43] purpose in life. Well the biggest issue is and those meetings is we're just listening to a
[35:50] listing of what's going to be spent and it's already going on the road and it's already off the door and
[35:56] that's what I felt was such that we're there
[35:58] looking at the numbers but it's it's already been determined. I mean we were meeting practically
[36:04] after the fact and that's not what it should be and I think we should get this out to all
[36:11] of the council members because this is probably the first time you've seen it but there's
[36:15] a lot of things in here it's a longer document you know it's four pages it's not a paragraph
[36:20] but it talks about trying to put together basically a five-year spending plan not just okay
[36:26] the council wants to send this next year but let's look out to the future and try to manage
[36:31] our budgets so that we don't see wild shifts in spending from one year to the next,
[36:37] stagger it out. So we're not buying 20 vehicles and three road projects all in one year,
[36:43] and then for two years don't do anything, you know.
[36:46] And the majority of the conversation was about debt.
[36:48] Yeah, so it's like, that's what we want that committee to do is to look out that,
[36:52] that longer thing and try to say, well, you know, where should these projects be placed
[36:58] so that we can manage our budget more effectively.
[37:01] And with the issue of debt, that is a new fund.
[37:06] What is the impact of all of these projects on our debt load?
[37:09] And can we continue to borrow money year after year to pay for things?
[37:15] Or should we say we don't want any debt?
[37:17] And if we want to do that, what are the consequences to our taxes going forward?
[37:23] Those kinds of discussions aren't being held enough, in my opinion.
[37:27] And I would think that the capital improvement committee would be a really good place to have that you when you said, you know, the impact or taxes going forward, you must part of that.
[37:37] What is the impact of our debt to our department heads going forward?
[37:43] Because if we didn't have the debt, they would have a, they would have a significantly bigger budget.
[37:49] Yeah.
[37:49] You know, with no taxes?
[37:50] To get ourselves out of a cash-based business, we used to be pretty much a cash-based business
[37:55] until the council decided that every road in town was going to be paved.
[37:59] And then, expensive just got too far out of hand.
[38:02] We had to borrow money to ensure that some of the repairs that were necessary.
[38:06] If we were to try to go back to a cash-business and say, we were going to borrow any money going
[38:11] forward, what does that mean to our taxes over the next ten years?
[38:15] And from what I'm seeing, we're talking double-digit tax increases every year, just to get out from under the current debt load if we don't borrow money going forward.
[38:27] But those are questions I think a group needs to really dive in and look at and understand and make us recommendation.
[38:35] Now if that's us, that's us.
[38:38] But I look to somebody like the capital improvement committee to help us with that.
[38:41] So does the Capitol Improvement Committee and excuse me, I don't know who sits on it, do they have the sophistication to understand this stuff?
[38:50] Well, this public finance can be pretty, pretty in-depth.
[38:56] Yeah, the committee, as it's currently constructed, is made up of our two department heads.
[39:03] Again, without bylaws, we don't know.
[39:05] it's three residents essentially and I think it's meant to be more than a
[39:11] three-member committee so we basically decided it's a five-member committee
[39:16] that consists of our public works director our fire chief, a representative from
[39:21] the Park and Rec Committee which is Laura Weber, a representative from the
[39:25] Planning Commission which is Mary Cullen and an at-large appointee who is
[39:33] Those are the five members of the committee at the moment.
[39:37] The council member, the council liaison on myself are just, I'm there as a director
[39:41] of the committee.
[39:42] I present the information and the council member is just the council liaison but it is right
[39:47] now a five member committee.
[39:49] It is if we are thinking about larger scale discussions about debt policy and long term
[39:57] of spending? Is that the right number of people? I don't know. But to your point, the more
[40:03] people you have, you still have to make sure that they understand what you're talking
[40:07] about, because you've been spending most of your time educating and not a lot of time developing,
[40:14] depending on who's on the committee.
[40:16] I guess I don't know Laura Weber's background well enough, but I would think all of the other
[40:21] members have a pretty good handle on budgeting, I think?
[40:25] Well, it's more than budgeting.
[40:26] I mean, it's public finance.
[40:29] And so it's, and maybe you don't, like, I don't know.
[40:35] I've got a master's in public administration
[40:37] and a lot of years of public finance.
[40:40] And it was an executive budget officer
[40:42] for the state for many years.
[40:43] So it can, especially when you're going into debt
[40:47] load and things like that, it's not just necessarily revenues and expenses, you know.
[40:55] I will say that I was on that committee for a year, I think, before Jim joined the
[41:01] city council and, you know, for me personally, I would say I'm an expert by any means.
[41:08] And we did have a plan that we reviewed that showed, you know, so many years out, like 10 years
[41:13] out that showed where each one of the large expenses were coming so I did feel like we
[41:18] did a good job of talking through that and trying to make sure there wasn't too much in
[41:22] any one year but as for the debt discussion to me that seems more like a city council discussion
[41:28] and philosophy and you know more people who have more expertise I guess I mean definitely more
[41:35] than myself because like from a study standpoint it's like that was a good question that I
[41:41] had is trying to raise the cash fund that we had available. How many, like, how
[41:46] much is actually needed? And we talked about this a whole bunch of Ryan and I
[41:50] think what Isaiah was there to trying to understand like what that actually
[41:55] looks like. So to me, that's that's that part of it is on our level to determine
[42:01] that because we're elected officials.
[42:04] I just think there needs to be a group of
[42:06] people looking at it. Whether it's the capital improvement committee or
[42:09] to see the council so be it, but there needs to be somebody who's taking a serious look
[42:14] at it.
[42:15] You know, by the 10 years out.
[42:16] To council member Gribble's comments about, it feels like they're just reviewing things
[42:24] that have already been approved.
[42:27] You know, the documents that are presented are the same one.
[42:31] The council sees the capital fund documents, and those placeholder expenses in the future
[42:37] are there for future expense. Now, we previous councils have delayed some of those expenditures.
[42:47] And part of that delay is kind of why we're in the position that we're in, having purchased
[42:51] as many vehicles as we have over the last 18 months. We've done our, well, not, I'm not
[42:57] going to say we've done our best, but we have tried to space out future expenditures for vehicles
[43:07] but it may be that the committee doesn't feel like it either has the authority or has been given the authority to ask specific questions, to challenge the requests or the placeholders that staff have put in there, and maybe that needs to come with a part of a charter or direction from council on, you know, instead of having that debate.
[43:32] And a council meeting that is where the committee will have that discussion of is this, you know, essentially justifying the expense.
[43:41] You know, there are certainly policies that we could implement internally as staff to help explain why those expenditures are marked the way they are.
[43:53] But the concern that I would have is that, you know, the discussions have been extreme.
[45:00] I can't buy anything until something is completely broken and not usable. And those are extremes that we just can't operate under either one of them. There has to be a middle ground in which we have an acceptable replacement policy for equipment. We have a basic understanding of what borrowing, if any, we will have whether it's by department or by the city as a whole.
[45:27] and generally what, you know, the discussion we started with around debt was we're currently
[45:32] at about 20% of our levy goes towards debt.
[45:38] If we're going to look at developing a policy around debt, what marker do we want to use?
[45:44] Is it percentage of levy?
[45:46] Is it number of bond issuances in any given time?
[45:50] the fire chief had referenced at one point the township
[45:54] and generally have a policy of no more than two bonds
[45:58] outstanding at any time.
[46:00] So you wouldn't even think about issuing another one
[46:02] until the, you know, one of the previous ones expires.
[46:07] Is that a policy that we carry forward?
[46:11] You know, the unfortunate thing that everyone is facing
[46:14] and not only us, but things are a lot more expensive
[46:18] than they were. The cost of the fire trucks, the cost of the plow trucks, far exceed what
[46:24] they have been in the past. Now our levees reflect that cost of an increase. Obviously, we are not
[46:29] collecting the same amount of money we did 10 years ago. But we have to find balance within that
[46:36] and some guiding documentation or policy or even just a general understanding amongst
[46:42] the CIC committee and the council about what that would be will help staff better understand
[46:49] how we can earmark funds in that five-year window.
[46:54] We generally look out two to three years, five years at the most.
[46:57] I think we went out to 32 in the discussion, knowing that Mike has items out to 20 feet because
[47:04] we just know we need a new engine by 20, 51 or whatever it is.
[47:10] But yeah, we, it would be helpful, you know, and if this is the document we want to start on, this gives us a great place to start.
[47:19] It was not aware that this document existed, otherwise probably would have brought this to the committee and said this is what was approved.
[47:25] You know, nine years ago, was it still kind of the guidance that we want to provide?
[47:30] But the committee is really looking for some direction, not really wanting to spend a lot of time spending its wheels discussing matters
[47:36] There's that either don't matter or aren't taken seriously.
[47:41] Absolutely.
[47:42] I wouldn't want to see that happen to you.
[47:45] And I have another question just on the committee process.
[47:49] So we've got five members of the CIC committee with the council liaison.
[47:55] Is there anything that prohibits a city council person from being a member of a committee?
[48:00] Or is that just not what we do?
[48:01] I don't think there's anything that prohibits it, but it's never been something the city has done before, keeping in mind that any, if there's three or more council members on the committee are scheduled to be there, it's now an open meeting of the council.
[48:15] I just think it might make the committee work.
[48:20] And I'll just speak from my own experience as a liaison, I don't necessarily really feel like I'm contributing.
[48:27] And so, maybe the contribution is not contributing, but so my preference would be, if I'm going to spend hours at a time sitting in a chair, I'd prefer to contribute.
[48:41] And I know that some committee members prefer that rather than waiting until I get to City Council to hear what I think.
[48:53] So like a firework to be a member of the CIC, I would want to be an active partner.
[49:01] And we have the EDA has two council members on it.
[49:04] There's just seven member board and we have two council members as voting members of the EDA.
[49:09] There's no reason we couldn't do the same thing for the CIC in a point to second council member and then open up to a third another seat to get seven members if we wanted to do that.
[49:22] When I'm the liaison to the internet committee and I consider myself an active participant, I can't vote, but I'm pretty vocal.
[49:31] So some of the thing is it goes back to the very core of the council and the approach to our projections of future budgets.
[49:41] It really does.
[49:42] I mean, we're talking about the road improvements and stuff like that.
[49:50] Well, one projection is that it's going to cost us X amount of dollars from other ones going to cost us significantly less.
[49:56] well, you know, based upon how the council approaches it, you know,
[50:03] it's determined significantly how you're going to approach that question.
[50:06] You know, if we're going to operate just continually borrowing money in the future,
[50:10] then we can take that role to ever not going to do that.
[50:13] We're going to try to go the other way, we're going to find a different way to do it.
[50:17] And that trick was done right into that meeting.
[50:20] At least it does to me because when the other civilians are asked,
[50:24] They're comfortable with that, they all said zero, they don't want the debt.
[50:31] So yeah, the unfortunate part with the amount of debt that we have specifically related to roads is there's no real mechanism for
[50:40] the city to pay that off early.
[50:42] Certainly we can, you know, not at least the 2018 bond has passed its call date, it could be paid off, but the amount of money that the city would need to make that payment is just not feasible.
[50:54] Now, the vehicle ones, we could certainly work on paying those down early, they're much
[51:00] more manageable, but getting out of debt, the only really feasible way to do it is just
[51:06] to not issue any more, and let the current road debt expire when it's done in 2023, 23rd
[51:14] to 3 and 2044.
[51:16] Yeah, it's going to be a 15-year process or 10-year process, for sure.
[51:19] Okay.
[51:19] Oh, it's Janice.
[51:21] Those have a 30-year life roughly.
[51:25] So yeah, it's a pitch not short-term at all.
[51:29] You two are both on the committee.
[51:31] What are your impressions?
[51:39] Just my impressions of the meetings
[51:42] that I've been a part of since I've been here
[51:45] is the difficulty I think it was already brought up
[51:47] of having resident members that just may not understand
[51:53] the process, like Kirsten had mentioned, physically, but also just equipment wise, or
[52:00] depending on what the project is, not being a full knowledge in that come fire trucks or
[52:08] plow trucks, they see the price, and it's a lot, I will admit.
[52:15] But that understanding of why is it so much, and just taking that time, especially as
[52:22] members, new members come on, we're just having those same conversations over and over again
[52:27] of why is that so much so that that's my take on it. On the resident member side, I think
[52:37] we do a good job at structuring, putting pieces of equipment or projects out at certain years,
[52:45] I think we have a good replacement schedule and even our equipment has bounced around a bit,
[52:51] that especially these last two to three years
[52:53] were putting a truck here instead of there
[52:57] or moving things around, even just on a staff level,
[53:00] even before these meetings take place.
[53:02] So I will say, I feel we do a good job
[53:07] at projecting out these replacements
[53:10] just on a staff level.
[53:12] So.
[53:14] And I'm going to what Mike said in Concentred Riverville said.
[53:20] And maybe that's what committee work is about and then committee work comes to the council level and the council has a discussion and then takes it from there.
[53:29] I mean, and maybe that's the role.
[53:32] So it's in both work, both models work.
[53:38] And part of the, again, not having bylaws, not having a set meeting schedule, the committee
[53:46] generally meets late winter early spring in advance of budget discussions, and then
[53:51] generally does not meet again for another year.
[53:55] May not be the best schedule and that we're not maintaining and building on previous
[54:04] previous discussions or waiting too long to do that so that we're re-educating.
[54:11] Another thing that we may want to consider is instead of having dedicated appointees
[54:17] from various subcommittees, maybe we just have all at large council or residents that way
[54:23] if they choose to move off of their committee, they don't necessarily have to move off of the
[54:28] capital improvement committee.
[54:29] We ended up losing, so Perry Reinders was on, was the planning commission, but because
[54:37] he resigned from the planning commission, he could no longer sit on the Capitol Improving
[54:43] Committee because that seat is designated for a planning commission member.
[54:47] But if we remove that requirement of planning commission member and park and rec commission
[54:52] member and just have at large residents, perhaps you gain the continuity of those people wanting
[54:58] to be on the committee for many years so that we don't spend a couple hours a year re-educating,
[55:05] re-informing before we can actually have a meaningful discussion.
[55:09] Right, and I don't know, again, what are with Council Member Gervell and myself being
[55:17] the two newest members, what are the council's priorities?
[55:21] Do we give that direction to the committee?
[55:24] do we or are we so caught in the debt girdle that we can't breathe? Does the committee
[55:31] look at other funding sources? Are there other funding sources that are worth looking
[55:36] at? I've made no secret about the improvements that could be made around this place for many
[55:43] different reasons and for many different purposes and are the places to go to get this money,
[55:48] But that is a planning process, you know, the capital bonding bill is a two to four year process, and so it's something that we can look at and start planning for, and start looking at other sources of revenue to help us get there, you know.
[56:07] Yeah, so I've been on the committee a long time and through different groups and whatnot.
[56:18] And over the years, they've always focused on the money part of it and it bogged them
[56:26] down.
[56:26] If they got away from that part and focused on prioritizing, not just to find, but making
[56:33] I'm sure that items fit within some parameter that you set.
[56:39] They have much better outcomes.
[56:41] When they start trying to find money, they're not that kind.
[56:45] They don't have the authority to look for money.
[56:46] I don't think that's the right route to go.
[56:50] But I think if you want to keep a planning commission, it would be, or CIP,
[56:58] it would be to make sure that the items meet the requirements of why they're in a
[57:03] CIP and maybe prioritize them, but when they try to determine funding and stuff like
[57:09] that, I think that falls back to the council's because you're the ones that make the funding.
[57:16] They can make a recommendation.
[57:17] They did, I forget if it was the 18-year-old project or which one they're the ones that made
[57:23] a recommendation to the council to do a bond, to catch up on some of these bad roads.
[57:30] But I think if you make a charter or whatever, I think it would have to be evaluated by you guys every election year because this group changes their mind very frequently too.
[57:42] As new members come on.
[57:44] We never change them.
[57:48] There's different priorities and I wrote a letter because I didn't think I'd be here.
[57:55] But I've been on this for a long time and it's just a spin your wheels through it, they talk.
[58:01] You get new people all the time, so they, it spends the first meeting just bringing them up to speed, because unless people are on a committee or personally affects them, no one takes any interest in.
[58:12] and so if there was more continuity and maybe a bit more
[58:16] frequently, would that help?
[58:18] I don't know, I guess I get very frustrated
[58:22] going to the meetings because yeah,
[58:24] we always end up back on roads arguing about
[58:28] what level road we should keep or what grade,
[58:32] you know, we do the favor scoring
[58:34] and it always comes to that and how do we fund that
[58:38] and everything else gets pushed aside.
[58:41] so why bother? If you want that make a road improvement committee because
[58:48] that's what they've done for the last 15 years that I've been on.
[58:53] Greg, would
[58:54] you want to talk about this at all?
[58:59] If you do, could you come into the mic?
[59:03] Questions, comments?
[59:04] Turn on the mic.
[59:06] Sorry.
[59:07] There you go.
[59:07] Is there?
[59:08] Okay.
[59:09] Questions, comment.
[59:10] As part committee chair, we do encourage you to be part of the committee and contribute.
[59:15] Like Steve said, you're.
[1:00:00] And like, especially Patty, took on some of projects and stuff to do herself. So, yeah, we had occurred to be like a regular member.
[1:00:08] And I was on the park, the conference of the plant committee back when we became a city. And what I, the way we talked about a lot of things that we typically, a lot of people that ended up there were people that had an agenda. Somebody that wanted lived in a four per 40, wanted to make that little area, a two and a half acre,
[1:00:28] or make a cluster out of it or whatever.
[1:00:32] And of course we had somebody lived by the gravel pit
[1:00:35] that wanted to get rid of the gravel pits.
[1:00:38] So I don't know, maybe in screening people
[1:00:40] ask them why they want to be on a committee.
[1:00:43] If they're looking at the city as a whole,
[1:00:45] and we've even had people, I guess you'd say,
[1:00:50] stumping for themselves, you know.
[1:00:53] Well, here, if what for me to do this,
[1:00:54] and I'll do this, I don't think you need
[1:00:57] I think they're better for the city, you know,
[1:01:00] it's not where I'm here for.
[1:01:02] So, just two cents worth.
[1:01:04] Okay, thank you.
[1:01:07] I don't know that we're gonna be able to make
[1:01:09] a good decision tonight, honestly.
[1:01:11] There's a lot to think about.
[1:01:13] I think to just, to me,
[1:01:15] the one of the things we need to just think about is,
[1:01:18] you know, how are you gonna progress?
[1:01:20] You know, I mean, you know, do we try to,
[1:01:22] you know, find funding and stuff like that?
[1:01:24] And then you mentioned in the past, you know,
[1:01:25] maybe cutting back a little bit on our annual road improvement programs.
[1:01:31] And I don't want to establish your roads, but at the same point,
[1:01:34] it's just like, I'll just point it to the top of 197,
[1:01:39] the little stretch between the highway and the top of the hill.
[1:01:43] Yeah, it's going to be more economical to replace it.
[1:01:46] But I don't know what that little stretch of asphalt would cost.
[1:01:50] I have no idea, you know, $50,000 or something.
[1:01:54] But nobody's driving on that road.
[1:01:56] I mean, there's 12 seasonal places at the bottom of the hill.
[1:01:59] They're already going slow.
[1:02:00] I mean, it's just a little savings that can be on top of,
[1:02:06] now it's up not a $350,000 block truck.
[1:02:08] It's a $300,000 product.
[1:02:10] I mean, we're going to have to look at little things, you know.
[1:02:13] We did a bunch of little roads over on Manning
[1:02:16] because they were all kind of, you know,
[1:02:18] close together in small projects.
[1:02:19] Well, this is a small project,
[1:02:21] but we just kind of threw it in there
[1:02:23] because it was on the top of 197th.
[1:02:25] Well, that was pretty convenient,
[1:02:27] but really, what are we getting out of it?
[1:02:29] We're getting a nice smooth road to go to a,
[1:02:32] I think, about a 10-month-hour hill.
[1:02:34] You know, and I don't know what the long-term game
[1:02:36] is that's gonna be, you know.
[1:02:38] So I think the way we need to do this
[1:02:41] is nickel and dime.
[1:02:42] People don't climb mountains and won't stop.
[1:02:43] They climb one step at a time.
[1:02:47] I like my idea of having like a separate,
[1:02:52] Roads grew because I do agree having sat through it for one year and being on there that the focus and on the discussion was on the roads
[1:03:01] And we were trying to figure out you know, what is the expectation of the community and I would say it did
[1:03:08] take away from
[1:03:09] You know really maybe analyzing some of the other expenditures more because there's only so much time that you will have a
[1:03:16] I got attention span for in those meetings
[1:03:19] So I think that would be a good thing to look at.
[1:03:26] I guess I would suggest that we send the link to this document out all of you.
[1:03:32] So we all kind of have the same starting point and get that together at our next workshop.
[1:03:39] And well, at least have you on a common ground.
[1:03:42] And maybe we can make some good decisions.
[1:03:44] I like the idea of maybe splitting off a road committee because that.
[1:03:49] That has been talked about for as long as I've been on this council and we've never really
[1:03:53] have figured out the silver bowl, so to speak, I don't know that there is one, but it's
[1:03:59] a tough project.
[1:04:01] Yeah, it kind of feels like the waste water committee, right?
[1:04:03] Like we have a whole committee designated towards that because it's such a large piece of
[1:04:09] our budget and large item that this is kind of a similar thing.
[1:04:15] I don't necessarily know if we need another subcommittee, but if this committee meets on a regular
[1:04:21] basis, then they can handle that additional topic if we're meeting more consistently.
[1:04:28] With stated goals and objectives, then we can dedicate a meeting or two over three or four
[1:04:34] months of a year to have that discussion, bring a recommendation to council that can help frame
[1:04:41] future CIC meeting discussions going forward. Yeah, that makes sense.
[1:04:50] Because it's been there's just another group of people that needs to be brought up to speed
[1:04:54] and you know, so I think yeah for it can be a task of this committee and we can make it
[1:05:00] or ensure that we are meeting frequent enough that we're able to accomplish this in addition
[1:05:04] to the five-year planning that this document outlines but yes we can put this on the work session
[1:05:11] and not go over for a follow-up. We've talked about a couple maybe a couple of different
[1:05:14] members or frequent meetings or specific direction.
[1:05:21] Yeah, I can also try and put together just some draft by-laws using like the EDA by-laws
[1:05:27] or something like that as a framework.
[1:05:29] Okay.
[1:05:30] Not make it too long so it's easy to understand, no, yeah, we'll get something like that together
[1:05:34] as well.
[1:05:35] Maybe not tying it to our committees, like you said, can help.
[1:05:39] Okay.
[1:05:40] Better continuity.
[1:05:40] Yeah, I'll just reiterate Mike's point of creating those guidelines.
[1:05:45] Like we already have our internal schedule for each piece of equipment actually having that in a document.
[1:05:53] Like the mower is replaced just every eight years.
[1:05:57] So it's on the eight year schedule plot trap 12 15 depending on piece of equipment so that that group doesn't get stuck in the weed saying,
[1:06:08] Well, let's replace it at 10, or let's replace it at 20.
[1:06:12] The schedule is, it says 12.
[1:06:16] So that's, I like that point.
[1:06:18] And then this group, when gets stuck in weeds on trying
[1:06:22] to figure out replacement schedule,
[1:06:24] because like, and whoever sits in a director role
[1:06:28] has more experience than that.
[1:06:31] So, I have certain things that you do have a schedule on.
[1:06:34] We like a little bit of flexibility on the schedule,
[1:06:36] But in just and they're looking I think for those kind of guidelines so yeah, okay, thank you
[1:06:45] Any more conversation before we move on to the budget
[1:06:50] Okay, so limited graph budget update Kyle
[1:06:54] Yeah, I thought long and hard about putting together a nice long presentation for you guys because in a home
[1:06:59] Would you love it?
[1:07:00] But then I realized I should do that again in about two weeks
[1:07:03] as we, because we will approve our not to exceed budget at our September meeting.
[1:07:09] So I basically just copied the levy table from the presentation and just showed the changes
[1:07:17] between what was presented in October and where we're at at the moment.
[1:07:21] So we do have a slight reduction in our overall net levy at about $24,000,
[1:07:30] which is about 0.22% reduction in the overall increase.
[1:07:35] So we're still looking at about a 6.3% increase.
[1:07:38] We have not heard yet from any of our insurance providers
[1:07:43] and then certainly if we are able to secure rates
[1:07:47] with professional service agreements with legal and engineering
[1:07:50] that can obviously have an effect on those line items as well.
[1:07:55] But yeah, we're generally holding pretty steady,
[1:07:57] but we are a little bit lower than we were in August.
[1:08:02] So I'm saying we'll have a full, a more comprehensive presentation in a couple of weeks here explaining
[1:08:08] some of these changes, but this is felt all that was necessarily needed tonight.
[1:08:14] And we will do a similar one in October as well, just to kind of keep you up to date on not
[1:08:19] any changes that may have been made.
[1:08:21] Okay. Okay. Any feedback for Kyle on this? Any other direction and what he's already
[1:08:28] doing?
[1:08:31] I'm just going to throw it there, you know, just as a mental thought. I was
[1:08:34] looking at the, you know, the turs lovey, you know, I agree we should have something
[1:08:40] there, but I'm mean, we have the did any expenditures happen in 26. I mean, you know, that
[1:08:47] that fund it should be building, but you know.
[1:08:51] Yeah, that's in here as a fuller.
[1:08:53] I think as the committee has discussed whether or not,
[1:08:55] it actually needs to continue to function.
[1:08:57] If they choose not to, then that money can be folded
[1:09:00] into any of those other funds, whether it be folded into EDA
[1:09:05] or folded into just a general fund.
[1:09:10] I think before the tourism committee was formed,
[1:09:12] I think generally any expenses related to tourism
[1:09:14] came out of the economic development authority.
[1:09:17] And before the tourism actually had a dedicated levy everything was paid for out of the EDA levy
[1:09:24] So if they choose not to operate
[1:09:27] We can roll that into EDA or we can just get rid of that line item and just have it come out of EDA to begin with
[1:09:34] That's something that what I'm looking at is those balances will be growing and I don't want to see it grow and all of a sudden
[1:09:39] It's I don't know about $1,000 and all of a sudden so let's do this. You know, and there's a some oil project
[1:09:46] So that you raise a good point, we do an annual budget, right?
[1:09:51] And so an annual budget, I don't know if we quite do zero-based budgeting, but so we don't.
[1:10:02] So tourism, loudly, brings in $3,000 a year if it's not spent, do they get a save it?
[1:10:08] It stays in the fund yet, but I don't think they spent the four from
[1:10:13] 26. No, they would not have spent everything in 2026.
[1:10:20] But there's no expectation. I mean the expectation is as we do in annual budget.
[1:10:25] Historically, that has been the policy of the council. I take that back.
[1:10:30] Historically, that has been what has been presented by staff and accepted by council.
[1:10:34] I don't think any discussion has been had about if you have enough money in the fund to cover your planning.
[1:10:40] expenses then there will no will not be any additional revenue because we can cover expenses through existing.
[1:10:47] Well, when we look at the fund budgets, those documents as you share with us go out to 32 and they show each of the budgets
[1:10:54] with some basic assumptions on inflation.
[1:10:59] And so we get to see those and we can say that, okay, we've got to begin a fund balance.
[1:11:05] We don't need to levy anything here because we'll just use the fund balance to pay for it.
[1:11:09] Those are our options that we have.
[1:11:13] I haven't seen it done a lot that way, other than like with roads we have from the fund
[1:11:19] balance.
[1:11:20] Yeah, generally our capital funds utilize existing fund balance in the last couple of
[1:11:24] years, particularly the 401 and the 408 fund, the general capital fund and the road fund
[1:11:30] have utilized existing fund balance to do projects that exceed the annual living.
[1:11:37] Obviously, we can't do that with the general fund.
[1:11:38] we just don't have that much money in reserve.
[1:11:42] And then the two funds that we've, we have the EDA levy in 2024.
[1:11:50] It went away in 2025 because we didn't have an EDA, we reconstituted the EDA, added it in 2006.
[1:11:57] But the EDA has an existing fund balance of just over $40,000 left over from the previous iteration of the EDA.
[1:12:03] So based on their projected expenses, which is between $4,000 and $5,000,
[1:12:08] They really doesn't need to be an ADA levy.
[1:12:11] Same thing with tourism.
[1:12:13] They do not exceed their expenses.
[1:12:16] Do not exceed the projected revenue from this year.
[1:12:19] So then why?
[1:12:21] So if you have budget,
[1:12:24] and you have the money to spend,
[1:12:27] and the money should be used,
[1:12:28] let's just say for tourism,
[1:12:31] it's because we couldn't think of any advantageous way
[1:12:35] to send that money for Scandia on tourism or why didn't we spend it?
[1:12:42] The levy was established for 2026 based on previous spending and they're not spending
[1:12:50] at that level.
[1:12:53] EDA was the original EDA levy was $5,900 a year.
[1:12:59] It went up to I think $6,000 this year.
[1:13:02] I did seven next year because the EDA tourism had been about ten, so I just, but neither
[1:13:10] fund spends to the levy amount.
[1:13:13] There is some discussion amongst the EDA about revolving loan funds related to assisting
[1:13:19] local businesses in order to do that, that fund will need to grow some way.
[1:13:25] Gee, there's another idea.
[1:13:28] But at $7,000 a year, it doesn't grow very fast.
[1:13:32] if that's, you know, that's how we, depending on the policy of the, of the loan,
[1:13:38] generally you take a second behind a bank, but if the small business can't get a bank loan,
[1:13:43] then you generally wouldn't, you wouldn't assist them, or you are taking the risk of not getting your
[1:13:49] money back, if you still want to issue the loan, with some like maybe assessment agreement behind it.
[1:13:56] That's a discussion that has briefly been touched on at the EDA, has been requested by
[1:15:00] Program. But they haven't flashed out that whole concept yet and then how to fund it. We had a facade
[1:15:08] improvement program and that's where a lot of the money was put into. But we haven't had
[1:15:13] any applicants. It was easier and cheaper to pay for yourself for some program.
[1:15:29] They're
[1:15:29] that a version of taxpayers then giving grants to businesses to improve the facades.
[1:15:36] I don't think that would be very popular.
[1:15:38] Interesting idea that didn't work.
[1:15:41] Nothing is going to be popular 100% of the time.
[1:15:45] I would hope at least 10% would be hard one in that one.
[1:15:49] I said on the Economic Development Committee for the North End in St. Paul and we do grants
[1:15:56] and loans of millions of dollars a year.
[1:15:59] And if we give a facade grant, it is with the idea it makes everything, the one is that the rising letter makes it better.
[1:16:08] Yeah, yeah, lifts all boats.
[1:16:13] Like if only Charlie would go mo my mom.
[1:16:19] I have a lot more. Right down to two inches, a few inches more to rest in the air.
[1:16:25] Any other, is there any other feedback for the budget if
[1:16:34] hearing none and then I would suggest we move on to the last item on our agenda.
[1:16:39] I'll make a motion read your.
[1:16:41] I'll second that motion and a second all those in favor roll call Kirsten.
[1:16:46] I want someone someone picked up.
[1:16:50] Did you want to talk about that tonight?
[1:16:56] We were that we're thinking about that on the 22nd.
[1:16:59] Oh, he's here now.
[1:17:00] What?
[1:17:01] I was thinking about for the regular meeting,
[1:17:03] but you're going to do it with all the motion,
[1:17:05] so we can hear the conversation.
[1:17:07] Do you want to have it at the regular meeting
[1:17:08] or at the work council?
[1:17:10] Oh.
[1:17:11] That was probably a motion.
[1:17:13] OK.
[1:17:14] You OK?
[1:17:14] I'm fine with that, yes, please.
[1:17:15] We'll hear from you.
[1:17:17] Sorry for the confusion, Greg.
[1:17:20] Is it make still?
[1:17:21] Yep.
[1:17:21] Make it still.
[1:17:22] And they're fast.
[1:17:23] Yep.
[1:17:24] Should have picked on a fit to rest.
[1:17:25] But first, you guys missed the obvious
[1:17:27] for getting rid of the tourism committee. You know what it takes to get tourists here, right?
[1:17:31] World's largest dollar horse? They'll come. Okay, that being said.
[1:17:37] Richard Frest, next year's, well, yeah, it's next year, the 27th.
[1:17:42] I'm anticipating around $6,700 for what we need. I'll break that down a bit. Last year's
[1:17:52] for the rink and associated public works for plowing snow moving things around all the things they do.
[1:18:01] For this, that was a 47-71. No overtime was paid. It was all done during regular business hours.
[1:18:09] This year, they will not have to plow for the snow sculpture or winter being still save some money probably not a lot.
[1:18:16] But also hopefully we'll come up with a new contest to take the place of at least one
[1:18:22] of them.
[1:18:22] So there may be a little bit put back into there.
[1:18:26] And also they'll have to be pulling for a new place.
[1:18:29] So I guess for the fireworks, I guess that's a mic decision of where the fireworks are going
[1:18:33] to be since we can't do it down there anymore, but that's kind of that section that's going
[1:18:42] be, you know, only said that's the cost already being paid out or part of the budget for public works and that's money
[1:18:48] that's going to be regardless what function we have at the rank. Also the cost over and above the public works expenses is
[1:18:58] the Zamboni during the tournament. Last year they spent 1936 dollars total for labor and the Zamboni during the
[1:19:05] return amendment. We kind of talked about it, parks committee a little bit about hiring
[1:19:10] somebody individually to do the Zamboni and I'm guessing we probably didn't offer them
[1:19:16] enough money. I'm saying if we offer them 30 bucks an hour, we'd say $530, $535, because
[1:19:25] that way they could flex around they wouldn't be on overtime. They'd be on your straight
[1:19:28] time for most of it, it'd be some over time.
[1:19:32] So that would bring it down to $970.
[1:19:35] And since the Minnesota kicks in $1,000 to the fireworks, it's kind of a wash from one
[1:19:40] area to the next.
[1:19:42] Also, myisters is going to provide security to prevent fights in the warming house and
[1:19:50] outside there.
[1:19:52] So that's kind of my synopsis for that part anyway.
[1:19:57] way. Any questions so far?
[1:20:01] And we have a new spot for fireworks?
[1:20:07] It's been so long.
[1:20:11] There'll be snow. Okay.
[1:20:14] Office time. As we all know, we have a new office staff person.
[1:20:19] She will be taken over for interfest duties.
[1:20:23] So a couple of things there. The software that B has used in
[1:20:27] a past is no longer available so that it change.
[1:20:30] change. B is not used, it cares not used it. Veronica has used a sum and hopefully she
[1:20:36] can help you know with that. So office hours are going to increase because of the learning
[1:20:43] curve. And to help that, I'm having them do all of our banners, all of our advertising
[1:20:50] is all going to be like in portrait mode. In the past we've had some things like landscape,
[1:20:55] like for the posters you put around town. That way it'll be less changing your
[1:21:00] own form. They could pretty much just, well, it'll be overly simplified. They'd be
[1:21:05] doing just making bigger versions of them, but it's not that easy. But at least
[1:21:10] this way, they're not having to change formats and re-putting everything in there.
[1:21:16] Also, I know some of our banners were not in the best shape last year.
[1:21:24] The ones
[1:21:25] We do end up using them.
[1:21:26] Charles, have you looked at the ones that she's got for love it?
[1:21:29] Do you think that would work better in the winter?
[1:21:31] I mean, it's all, it's like a screen.
[1:21:33] I would think it'd be less wind resistance.
[1:21:37] Possibly, I'm not an expert in banner and I know the worst part is it's the cold weather and it's a vinyl material.
[1:21:46] If it's not cold weather rated, it can crack in the cold and typically where these banners are placed, they're in windy location.
[1:21:58] I guess that I can't say what is going to be better.
[1:22:03] Actually, I've talked to Sue and possibly we'll have one of the concerts during Vintagrest.
[1:22:09] I'm thinking indoors.
[1:22:11] I don't know how many people would.
[1:22:12] Musicians we want to be playing outdoors, but in that case, we could get her put one of
[1:22:18] her signs up.
[1:22:19] Maybe in the future we'll see how well it holds up.
[1:22:21] maybe maybe I heard he was one of his guinea pig if she's willing to do that.
[1:22:27] And kind of lastly, talking to our deputy and he suggested that we hire an off-duty
[1:22:34] officer during winter press like we do for taco days that way somebody would be there
[1:22:39] for coverage all the time and he won't be called away for excuse me, called away for calls
[1:22:45] like Jake's been doing.
[1:22:48] I mean, you said, Mice just was going to do security?
[1:22:51] Yeah, he's going to hire somebody to watch over the tent to try to prevent any fighting for breaking out, okay?
[1:22:57] There's a discussion early about Mice just making money and not contributing back to the city.
[1:23:03] So, we talked about it and thought the best use of money contribution or
[1:23:09] thing would be spent on preventing fights for the hockey tournament.
[1:23:14] Okay, so you're talking about a second officer as well?
[1:23:19] At least this, I don't know if we need a second one, but if we just had an off-duty, the off-duty would be at all time.
[1:23:24] I don't think myister's as plushed officers as security.
[1:23:27] Myister's isn't going to hire the off-duty, he's going to hire just a balancer basically to keep peace in the tent, okay, I didn't want to use that.
[1:23:35] These are two separate things, yeah.
[1:23:39] So, anyhow, something to kick over on, I don't know how much an off-duty officer is, but I don't know, maybe you know Jim.
[1:23:46] but they run about $650 for the time that they're here for taco days.
[1:23:53] So if they're not here for the same amount of time, it will be less.
[1:23:56] Okay. And maybe we could fill in our regular one for part of the time or whatever,
[1:24:01] but he just threw it out there as a suggestion, you know, just to keep police presence here.
[1:24:08] There'd be a cop car here all the time.
[1:24:09] There'd be somebody here in uniform all the time that way, whereas last year everyone's
[1:24:14] Well, he'd have to go to school, not out of here,
[1:24:16] which with traffic and whatever is,
[1:24:19] maybe we didn't really help his timing.
[1:24:21] I'm better aware he needed to go.
[1:24:23] So, any questions?
[1:24:26] Yeah, you're not kind of the snow sculpture pile.
[1:24:29] What are you gonna have for kids events,
[1:24:31] like family events?
[1:24:32] We are trying to come up with something.
[1:24:35] Nobody signed up for the winter means last year
[1:24:38] and because we had such a great snow sculpture last year,
[1:24:41] we can't, no point in even trying to beat that.
[1:24:46] Stone did it find out. Yeah, Jim was the only one that signed up for us. No, I don't know. Stone did it. That's all stone. He got to. Yeah, it's really cold day, too.
[1:24:57] And it's been, I mean, we, you know, not as cold, but we've always, you know, just for some reason, the last two years was what, the year before or last year, we had no snow was at the
[1:25:05] thing or then last year so cold so I don't know if it just lost their momentum or you can't win yeah the
[1:25:12] kids grew old I don't know what happened but I have a few ideas for you after things maybe a medallion
[1:25:18] hunt would be a medallion hunt would be really good we have that ready well with the locals I mean I
[1:25:23] mean something to attract the kids yeah well the Lions do a medallion hunt basically because they
[1:25:32] We're going to do a medallion hunt I think for talk with days and for some reason medallions all came back with Winterfest on them
[1:25:38] So they've been doing a medallion hunt
[1:25:41] They give give high hints on the Alliance Facebook page throughout Saturday
[1:25:47] so and if they have a
[1:25:49] Lions book I think I think that the Lions book or something and then you get extra money
[1:25:53] $1.00 or Lions coupon book. Yeah
[1:25:55] Yeah, then they get doubles it to whatever. Yeah
[1:26:00] So, yeah, we, if anybody has any ideas for a, you know, youthful or family thing, typically what we've done and we still have money left over last year from Bolton and Mink for the tournaments because we spend it all so hopefully we typically have done or hope to have done this have like a kids only and then the kids an adult category for a second and third.
[1:26:21] so. So question you said you had money looked over from last year because you didn't spend it all. Yes. So is this a is this budget outside of the city budget. Yes.
[1:26:32] This is money that came from Bolton and make that I don't know. Be put in a drawer where it is, but it's just left over that we just be talking to Bolton and make they were fine with us just keeping it for next year.
[1:26:44] So who is that check made out to? Is it made out to Vinterfest? Is it made up to the city?
[1:26:50] I don't know. I don't get involved in that part.
[1:26:52] I'm guessing it was made out to the city as sitting in the events line item in the Park and Right Committee.
[1:26:58] A budget when we're the park budget would be my guess.
[1:27:00] So when's the fiscal year end?
[1:27:03] It's in December.
[1:27:05] So on December 31st, the fiscal year ends and the budget is complete for the year.
[1:27:12] So then the next year, you start out with a new budget, right, January 1st?
[1:27:17] Correct.
[1:27:17] The park and wreck fund that has a fund balance in it.
[1:27:20] So the...
[1:27:21] So they don't start at zero.
[1:27:23] Everything doesn't go to zero at the end of the year.
[1:27:26] So it starts at whatever we approve...
[1:27:28] Whatever the previous fund balance was, whatever the revenue was, minus their expenses.
[1:27:34] So who approves the budget?
[1:27:35] We do.
[1:27:36] Okay, so we will see those numbers.
[1:27:38] I don't think that was part of the budget.
[1:27:40] The park and wrecked budget.
[1:27:41] No, no. I mean, I'm talking just as specific specifically the Bolton and Mink donation. I don't think that
[1:27:47] Well, that money is in the park and wreck budget under it. It went stuck into there. Okay, it would have been spent
[1:27:53] But we didn't have the event so there were no prizes to hand out but Bolton and Mink said don't give us our money back
[1:27:59] Just keep it the Christians correct though if that's put back into the general fund a general fund that
[1:28:06] Budget ends at the end of the year
[1:28:10] It's not like the EDA or the
[1:28:13] tourism. Okay. Anything
[1:28:15] anything. It is within the general fund in the park and you know there's an
[1:28:19] event's line item. When we put our operating budget together under 101
[1:28:25] department parks, there's an event's line item that if we receive a donation
[1:28:29] for an event, any expense that's paid out of that event for parks comes out of that line item.
[1:28:34] but the money just gets deposited into the general 101 account.
[1:28:39] No, the anything public works, parks, communities that are do not have their own separate fund outside of the general fund.
[1:28:48] I was confusing it with the park fund.
[1:28:50] One other thing that's maybe more just a Kyle thing, but with the money,
[1:28:55] typically for the fireworks, we get a $2,000 donation from the Lions and a thousand from the Minnesota.
[1:29:01] So, and if I were to say that that's really not enough to do much of anything anymore, so we need more money, and I've talked to Kyle before about how to get, no, if we, if I talked to some local businesses and say, yeah, I don't know, this seems.
[1:30:00] Security for specific events. Oh, it can. So I just have him write it out and send it here and then we could pay the fireworks guy. No. Okay. Good. Any other questions? Yeah, I mean we so generally, yeah, we would want any donation made out with the specific line item why it's being donated and what it's being donated for. Okay. That way we are obligated to spend it in the manner in which it was for that which it was donated. Okay. That helps.
[1:30:26] All right. Any other questions? Because I talked to OMC, I got them the Donate 500. So I'm
[1:30:34] hoping to get another, you know, at least a thousand extra to try to bring it up to
[1:30:38] least where if I were 10, I used to be.
[1:30:40] So when will ventifest be? January 29th and 30th. I think that's the last weekend, I believe.
[1:30:50] And I'm requesting everybody give me their information by December 2nd because of the extra learning curve for doing stuff.
[1:31:01] I think the last conversation I recall was that there were some issues that needed to be to be worked out with public works and that type of stuff.
[1:31:11] Are we beyond all that now? Is this set?
[1:31:16] Charlie?
[1:31:16] I don't remember any issues with public works I've comments taken by comments taken by residents I think a lot of
[1:31:27] express around and the Zamboni and all of the over time and that type of stuff everybody is on the same
[1:31:33] page about all that stuff now. I was just asked to prepare how much it costs to put on this event.
[1:31:39] Generally, the city expense related to
[1:31:43] ventrothest is between $8,000 and $10,000
[1:31:46] between public works and the office staff.
[1:31:49] That number had not been calculated at any time in the past.
[1:31:53] And the question was, is that a dollar amount that the city is
[1:31:57] okay with allocating towards that event?
[1:32:01] And we answered that question?
[1:32:02] Well, I guess my question is that
[1:32:09] significantly less.
[1:32:11] That's because the lightens pay for the talk what he's and the bulk of the the bulk of our time is in ring maintenance
[1:32:17] which you know
[1:32:19] To some level we would be doing anyway, but we tend to do more because of the hockey tournament requires better ice than just
[1:32:30] Ascading ring does
[1:32:31] so there is some
[1:32:33] some legitimacy to the comment that will public works would be doing some of this anyway.
[1:32:40] Yes, they would be maintaining the rank, but they're adding more ice, they're spending more time on it because they need better quality ice for the rank.
[1:32:48] Staff time is minimal, it's probably 10 to 15% of that total dollar amount and most of that as Greg alluded to is time spent putting together the advertising.
[1:33:02] And then even factored in that is the cost of purchasing the banners and things like that from from the printer
[1:33:11] So taco days is significantly less because we're not preparing the ring for anything
[1:33:15] I also don't think we factor in any time that the fire department puts into their event. I don't know if you guys are
[1:33:22] Paid for your participation in taco days
[1:33:39] So we do utilize the tank
[1:33:42] for at times to come down and
[1:33:44] now flood the ranks.
[1:33:46] And to clarify the numbers I
[1:33:48] provided the Parks committee in
[1:33:50] that meeting. I think it was back
[1:33:52] in April. The numbers I gave
[1:33:55] them was above and beyond what we
[1:33:57] normally would be doing.
[1:33:59] There was it didn't include like if we were it the numbers subtracted
[1:34:04] What we normally would be doing for a specific week didn't and the total number I provided was $11,200 for the event
[1:34:16] Yeah, and I was including office time to yeah no above and if total cost for the event was
[1:34:24] 11,200 dollars there was
[1:34:27] Because if I took our normal work day and subtract, I added it all up and then I subtracted what we normally would be doing for the week from the original total number, which whatever that was above $11,000, but after subtracting out a normal work day week for the person that, or however many hours we put in extra for preparation and then clean up after ended up being $11,000.
[1:34:55] but at 11,000 is counting 2,000 for office work.
[1:34:59] Correct, so 9,000 now public works time.
[1:35:03] And the park and rec committee didn't seem concerned
[1:35:07] about that extra expense.
[1:35:09] Council obviously has final say on that.
[1:35:13] There's never really been a financial accounting
[1:35:15] of interfests in the past.
[1:35:17] And so we felt it was important that we put together
[1:35:20] a financial recap and be able to present that
[1:35:23] through the council.
[1:35:23] So this is what that event costs us.
[1:35:25] I think we'll, knowing that we did that in 26, we'll certainly work to do the same in 27, make a similar presentation.
[1:35:32] We'll give us, start giving us a better understanding of where $2 amount actually is in case one year ends up being in anomaly.
[1:35:40] He asked a question about hindsight going back to 25.
[1:35:44] You guys had a fabulous job with the ice, and then there was no ice.
[1:35:49] Right. Well, there was no tournament.
[1:35:51] Well, there was no ice.
[1:35:53] Yeah, it's got the worm here.
[1:35:55] Yeah, it's called sun.
[1:35:57] How far in advance can you, and I know you're not a weatherman, but are you giving,
[1:36:06] like, no notice and a couple of day notice when it gets warm, or are you, or are you,
[1:36:10] it's, when we, when it has pretty much yet, where it was kind of waiting to see.
[1:36:14] Looking at it as the city is going to be funny, and you look at the wet forecast and it's,
[1:36:20] five degrees this week, but next week we'll be on a big warm up to 35 and in the meantime
[1:36:26] we're spreading money to the next week it's going well you have more faith in the
[1:36:32] weather people than I do because of the week out I don't believe what they're saying
[1:36:36] because it's going to change honestly I mean honestly that's by honest opinion and yeah
[1:36:42] it might get warmer but then again it'll re-freeze at night you know is it going to be sunny
[1:36:48] what happens every time, you know, now it's cloudy.
[1:36:50] Now it's not going to be 30 degrees anymore.
[1:36:54] So, you know, it was just kind of a last minute thing,
[1:36:57] about like two days ahead of time, I think we called it
[1:37:00] that this is going to be slush, or two, three days.
[1:37:03] It wasn't that, you know, there's a point of no return
[1:37:05] at some point.
[1:37:06] It was, it was like hours, like maybe the evening
[1:37:10] before they canceled, yeah.
[1:37:12] It was, so we were working all the way up
[1:37:15] to the final hour preparing.
[1:37:35] Yeah, I mean, if it's obvious, we had like obvious week of 40s and 50s, we haven't
[1:37:40] snore already, and he doesn't start till about the so many inches of frost, underground
[1:37:44] or frost in the ground, whatever below ground.
[1:37:47] So, and the hockey tournament brings in more people from outside the area than anything.
[1:37:53] That's the one that fills up the restaurants.
[1:37:57] Sue says her Dickens Pickens has more traffic that day.
[1:38:04] It brings people in.
[1:38:06] The other events are mostly local people.
[1:38:09] They're not going to eat here most likely.
[1:38:11] They're going to go home and eat.
[1:38:12] They're not going to fight the crowds or whatever.
[1:38:16] So it's a big boom in the city, you know, how do you put a dollar amount on that, you know, talking
[1:38:22] with Scott, he said they would, you know, Ozark, they were relatively new owners, I don't remember
[1:38:27] when they started, but they said this is a busy city they've ever had. You know, I was standing
[1:38:31] in the room only the first time they've ever had that and especially being a new business owner,
[1:38:35] they really needed it. And if anybody's familiar with the restaurant industry, January is a very
[1:38:40] dead time. You know, after the big Christmas boom, it's nothing till, like, same
[1:38:45] Patrick's Day. So it really helps our local businesses. And, you know,
[1:38:50] Ozark's gone through a lot of different people, you know, in the past
[1:38:53] over many years since it's been invented. So, you know, it's great for the
[1:38:58] community. You know, some of the people, like Scott said, some of the people came
[1:39:02] in there is like, yeah, when we came here for rent a fresh, it'll play in hockey
[1:39:05] and so well, this is, you know, let's see what it's like in the summer. Let's go
[1:39:09] visit the other places and stuff. We have, and we have a couple people here that their
[1:39:13] kids play in the tournament. So it's kind of fun for them to see their adult, no, older
[1:39:18] adult kids playing in it and, you know, it's a great thing.
[1:39:22] If I remember the numbers, the city's contribution is about a third of the total cost for Ventrefest.
[1:39:29] Two-thirds of it is raised by private donations in order to bring in the raptors or the
[1:39:36] just like dogs or other groups, so it's something that's born by the whole city.
[1:39:46] Yeah, we brought, you know, Gamma Gardens joined in, SHA is joined in, you know, the church
[1:39:51] has been apart for many years, but it'll be interesting to see when they get the water
[1:39:57] bar and up and running, you know, now they can separate things but, you know, in and out
[1:40:02] and all around.
[1:40:03] Okay.
[1:40:04] Any more questions?
[1:40:06] Yeah, I just want to finish with dinner fest as a whole wasn't the issues I was
[1:40:12] came about originally so there was targeted set of issues yeah and I think
[1:40:19] the largely the response I'm hearing is they're going to be fine to find more
[1:40:23] confinely games and they're going to be bringing in a greater security
[1:40:28] your presence to help right make sure we don't run into more issues.
[1:40:33] Yeah, and the issues they had I mean it's never been any professional sporting event.
[1:40:38] You just still see people swearing, drinking, doing whatever you get your complaints were about fights.
[1:40:44] I've been to a lot of the girls junior and high school basketball tournaments and forest lake.
[1:40:52] There's high school kids just sitting there swearing back and forth adults are people on the court are.
[1:40:57] It's like the expectations have changed, you know, people just aren't the way they make it right.
[1:41:03] It doesn't but what are you going to do?
[1:41:05] Yeah, it's their first amendment.
[1:41:07] Huh?
[1:41:07] I can think of a few things.
[1:41:09] Yup.
[1:41:10] Well, this is great.
[1:41:11] It's young.
[1:41:12] See, people will not record it and eject it.
[1:41:16] Whatever.
[1:41:17] It's the way it is.
[1:41:19] All right.
[1:41:20] Greg, one last question.
[1:41:22] You don't have answers.
[1:41:22] They can be addressed in a park's meeting just to think about it.
[1:41:25] Have you thought about generating any type of rules for outside vendors doing anything for the event as far as what just a general guidelines of rules like code of conduct code yeah code of conduct like maybe you can't bring in outside materials to the event like things like that.
[1:41:49] I think it's just, it's kind of free range, just come into whatever you want, so I'm just putting it out there just to think about it.
[1:42:00] I know what the conscious is we had, we've got big posters out there that have like ten things on there, no bikes, no walking, no swearing, no fights, that kind of thing, no
[1:42:17] vibrations.
[1:42:21] All right, any other questions?
[1:42:24] I make a motion to adjourn.
[1:42:26] I'll second that.
[1:42:28] All right.
[1:42:29] Is Mike still on?
[1:42:31] Yep.
[1:42:31] OK.
[1:42:33] So roll call.
[1:42:34] Kirsten.
[1:42:35] Jim.
[1:42:36] Aye.
[1:42:36] Mike.
[1:42:37] Aye.
[1:42:38] And Steve.
[1:42:39] Aye.
[1:42:40] We are adjourned.
[1:42:41] Have a good night, everybody.
[1:42:43] Good night.