council. Um I uh have a couple items on here that I'm going to kind of refer to as um maybe updating the city a little bit in terms of uh the way we do business. And uh I've asked Carrie to come and present on what's called Civics Plus is the company that hosts our website. As you know, we're um going to be updating the website. we get a free upgrade and um and with that comes options, not free options, but options nonetheless. uh that can help us kind of um the way we do business deliver it better for the residents and um and I I've asked Carrie to come and she's kind of been the point person on certainly the website and then working with Civic Plus to talk through some of the modules that they offer some of the new technologies and um and I've asked her to kind of give us an update on that. So, um yeah, Civic Plus is the company that we uh contract with who hosts our website and uh uh per our contract every 3 years we get a free redesign. We are eligible for our next redesign as of last year, but since we are in the middle of elections, I wasn't going to touch that both at the same time. Uh now that it's not an election year, we're trying to get that rolling. Um, another part of this project that I'm kind of trying to wrap in is uh all municipal governments are required to switch over to a.gov uh address or web address web domain. Um, so we won't have the ci.-beth.mn all that we will have to pick an address and switch over to a.gov. I'm trying to wrap that into the same thing at the same time, which means eventually all of our email addresses will also change to whatever that.gov domain is that we wind up choosing. Um, ideally, I'm trying to get that timed out so that comes into effect January 1st of 2026, so we just have a nice turnover date for that. But in addition to all that, we do have um Civic Plus does offer what they call modules, which are kind of add-on programs that we can use on the back end of our website that works for some of them are just for staff side. Um some of them will affect how the public can use our website as well. Um there are eight main uh modules that we have as staff that we have looked at. I set up a couple meetings with Civic Plus and got a bunch of staff together and we sat in here and we went over some we reviewed how the modules function, what they look like on the public side, what they look like on the back side, that sort of thing. Um do you have access to the share drive where you're at right now. I do because I think I have the uh module information in the work meeting folder. The work. Okay. Yeah. Otherwise, I can hook up my laptop too. Um but yeah, like I said, there's eight main modules that let's see here. module info. Okay, that's agenda and meeting management. I think there's another one. There's archive, social, and next request module. One. Okay. So, this is kind of the list of the different modules that we've been looking at. There's a community development module, which actually breaks down into smaller pieces. It's very very similar to what our staff is currently using to issue building permits. Um the software that we use right now is called Permit Works. We haven't exactly had the best luck with getting support on the back end when we have issues with it. Um, Permit Works is a very small company and like I said, we haven't haven't had the best of luck with getting in contact with any staff on their end when we have issues. Um, part of Civic Plus's community development module offers permitting software. Um, one of the additional uh, benefits to their permitting software is granted we have to get everything scanned in so that we have everything electronically rather than in our paper community uh, property files, but then if somebody a resident wanted to go in and pull up their own property file, they could do that from our website rather than having staff pull it um they can look and see what current uh building permits a property has active. So when we get uh data requests from somebody, does my neighbor have a permit pulled for their roof? They're working on it right now. They'd be able to go into the website, punch in their neighbor's address, and they'd be able to find it out themselves. Um so it does add a use as far as public transparency um at least for the permitting part. Um it does also under the community development module they do also have a licensing portion so that we could issue I could issue the tobacco licenses and the liquor licenses and that sort of stuff. There are several different uses under the community development module. Um the second module, the social media archiving module as because we have social media accounts as a municipality, we are required to keep the records of anything that we post or any sort of exchange that happens on our account. We are responsible for retaining those records. Um and they have to be kept depending on the nature of the message. We have to keep them for so many years. Um social media their social media archiving module connects with our social media accounts and it track start it tracks that for us. Right now we're doing it kind of uh very very low tech way. We're doing it via screenshot. Myself and one other staff member are trying to capture every message, every response that we get from every resident. We have to try and capture that and we're having to do it by hand via screenshot. This will track it for us as it's posted. So there is there's it that kind of satisfies the legal requirement that we have and it's a timesaver that way. uh process automation and digital services. Um the best way to describe that is any forms that we have online, it would automate those so that if something you know if a request comes in for a zoning uh land use request, it would automatically it would forward that to Grace. It would if we wanted it to CC Kendra or if we wanted it to CC Matt, it would do that. It automatic it automates the process so that we don't it kind of fills in the gaps so that if we were to have a staff change over like we have recently. It closes that gap so that it gets the me the information and it creates a checklist. Has this person seen it? Has this person seen it? Has this person seen it? And it cannot be approved until all of those have been checked off. um it we it can create that automation for any um form that we attach to that module. The fourth module is uh mass notification. Um most cities use that and they use it at the bare minimum level where if we have um an emergency notification that has to go out. We can use the mass notification uh module and it will you can either send it out to anyone that has signed up for it or you can have it so that it pings uh any cell phone number within our towers range within our uh designated municipal borders. Um you can use that for emergencies or you can use it on day-to-day notifications like okay for the Whispering Aspen neighborhood we're going to be flushing hydrants. We're letting all of them know this morning that that's what's going on this week. And so you can do it with day-to-day things or you can do it, you know, at a less frequent level for just emergencies and stuff. Um, Cclick Fix is very very common or very very similar to what we have currently with our uh complaint reporting. If somebody had if a plow hits a mailbox, they could use Cclick Fix and not only could they, you know, put in their address, but it would show a map, they could attach photos and you could, we could use staff could use CC click fix to send it out to specific staff members like, oh, this public works guy is in this area right now. We're going to send it to him so he can check it out. and you know sort of thing it and the person that submitted that request can see the responses in real time as to who it gets assigned to when it's been looked at that sort of thing. Uh the next one audio for municipal websites. This one again is kind of a legal requirement. So, it's kind of we've kind of nudged that one up there a little bit as far as, you know, our wish list since this one satisfies a legal requirement. It's a little bit higher up there. This one helps us check everything that's posted on our website to make sure that it's ADA compliant. So if anyone has any visual disabilities, if they have any reading disabilities, or if they have any physical disabilities, so that they have to use alternative equipment to actually be able to read the website. This double checks our content to make sure that we fall within those guidelines. Um, that's another federal requirement that is coming down that we have to comply with. I believe it's June 25th of 2026 um that we have to fall in compliance with a very basic level of how we post things and uh the content that we post. And it goes, it runs the full gamut from do we have subtitles on all of our photos to is the color of our text too close to the color of the background screen and is it e is it easy enough for people to read it. So it does all of those sort of checks as far as website compliance. Uh the second to last one, agenda and meeting management. That one's my favorite. But um this one helps us build as far as on the staff side. This one helps us build our council packets and our meeting packets. Um we would start, you know, staff would start putting in the agenda items and we as we add um content or the information that you guys view, it would automatically sort that underneath which agenda item it is attached to. So, usually the way we do it now when I'm putting together a council packet, we'll pull together, you know, agenda items and as we have the write up or any attachments or exhibits that go along with that, I have to pull all that together by hand on the day that I send it out to you guys. If I'm out that day, we find somebody to back it up. with this software, any one of our staff can do it with the click of a button. And um it had an additional option is for example, if one of the items on the agenda, if we're making an ordinance change, it will automatically number that ordinance. And since we get MUN code, which is a subdivision of Civic Plus, it can automatically send that to Civic Plus for codification. It's not something that I have to do quarterly. It will automatically do that with the touch of a button. So if I get hit by a bus, somebody else, you know, has the ability to do it quite easily. Um, we do have the ability through that as well. It's a kind of sub add-on underneath that that we would we could try to do minutes inhouse with that. Um, that would require staff time. Right now, we contract out with time savers for that. But for smaller meetings, like when we have um town hall meetings or if we have a shorter work meeting or the HA meetings, a lot of times I wind up doing those minutes in house. That was something that we could also use to put together those me uh minutes packets and it'll do that for us. and it it'll um it'll automatically number resolutions and it will cross tag between. So if we have a discussion on an item during a council meeting later on down the road when those minutes are approved, those minutes if somebody clicks on those minutes and they have an item in that minutes, it'll bring them back to the packet where that was discussed. So you can bring up the information that was in the packet pertinent to that part of the meeting or that part of the minutes. Also, it cross links to if there was a change in the ordinance, it'll automatically take you to Municode and show you where it was changed. Or if you're looking at MUN code and want to say, hey, when was this change made? I want to see the minutes for that. in MUN code. You can click on that and it'll take you back to the minutes from the meeting where that change was was approved. Um Carrie, will that do verbatim minutes if we need them? Um if we were to use that to do our own minutes, um it would be it's a little more heavy on the staff side for that. So it would be however we put it in um however we enter it. So and then uh the last item called next request specifically pertains to data requests and it is a tracking system for data requests. We can uh publish granted not all data requests are going to have public data attached to them. It's going to be private data, but you would the each request would get entered into a list that would appear online. And if it's public information, other people can see, oh, this was already requested, I can see the results of that. I don't have to submit another request. The thing that I think is really awesome is it can do redacting for us. That is the huge huge uh time consumption element when we have any sort of data request. We can't charge for my time to redact it. We you know we can charge for copies. We can charge for the time that it takes to pull it and compile it. We cannot charge for time redacting. And that is the lion's share of time that is consumed with any data request. But when uh that can help us, it'll automatically redact phone numbers, email addresses, social security numbers, and it has that as automatic settings within that software. And it does it multiple files at a time, not just one page at a time. Um, and like I said, we can choose that if we fill a data request through this, you can make it public. So if somebody else wants the same information, they do not have to submit an identical request and we send the same thing out to somebody else. They could look on and say, "Oh, hey, somebody else already asked for this. I can click on that and it'll pop it up." Um, so yeah, that those are the modules that we have looked at as staff. Obviously, you know, it's kind of a Christmas wish list sort of thing, but they all come with a price tag and, you know, none of them are ever cheap. But, um, some of them that we have looked at are, like I said, we we've looked at all of them amongst staff. Um, but I kind of had staff go through and rank what they think would be the most useful as far as our current staffing level, what kind of workload we have and, you know, what our current procedures are and whatnot. Uh, from a staff standpoint, the number one wish is the community development module. There you go. You got that. um the community development module, specifically the permitting software. Um the licensing, like I said, is an addition underneath that community development module. Um but specifically the permitting software and because that could be a replacement for permit works that we have right now. And I know uh the second item that you guys have on your agenda tonight is to talk about the backlog we have of imaging our property files in the community development department. Once we have those files imaged, that would work, that would dovetail right into the permitting software with Civic Plus. So that for example, Suzanne, if you wanted to pull up your property record and we had everything imaged, it would backtrack every permit that we have on file and you could go back and look. Okay, so this is the inspection report from the roof that was done in 2007 or, you know, something like that. and you can backtrack and you'd be able to backtrack and see every piece of paper that we have in your property file that is public information. Um, the second one that we were looking at that staff kind of rated overall as our second one on the wish list is the process automation in the digital services. Like I said, that is the um module that lets us tie any sort of application form or any form that we put on the website that gives us that automated uh worklist and checklist to make sure that like I said in the example of a land use request, it goes to Grace first. Kendra signs off on it. If it's something weird that we have to check with Nate, they can make sure that Nate signs off on it before it actually comes. So, uh, before you guys to get approved. So it goes down the ch, you know, the chain of checklist that it has to go through and we don't have anything falling between the cracks as far as well this person looked at it and this person looked at it but we skipped so and so because they were out on vacation or so you know something like that. Um, and the third one was the agenda meeting and management, which like I said, that's specifically for creating the packets for our meetings. Something that I didn't I forgot to tell you guys about that on the staff side for assembling the packets. That was that was our biggie. on your guys's side of viewing the packets. So, anyone that uses our website can create a login if they want to submit a request or anything else. Um for those uh uh commission members and council members that create a login for the website, you guys would get permissions to view the packet and each one of you since you have your own individual account, you could make notes on it online and it will save your notes on the packet specifically to you. And then even if you leave office, it will keep your notes. Whoops, sorry. It will keep your notes with those packets for as long as you have your account active whether or not you are on council. Um, but nobody else can see our notes. Nope. They are private to you unless you share them with someone else. Yep. Got it. Um, so you guys would also be able to see the packet as we're putting it, as we're adding information, as we're putting it together. That would be really nice because this Friday afternoon stuff, if I'm going out of town is a little rough. Well, and yeah, like like I said, if if there's stuff that gets added, you know, on a Friday afternoon, that would pop in, but if there's something that goes in there two weeks prior, you'd be able to see it. Well, exactly. I mean, one or two things on a Friday afternoon is fine, but you know, hundreds of pages on a Friday afternoon and you're 163 this last one. Yep. Um, but yeah, that so that was uh most of staff. I won't say all of staff, but that was most of staff. After we we kind of reviewed how the modules work, we had a presentation from the Civic Plus staff. Um, and we all kind of sat together and discussed, you know, where it could be used, what it, you know, what our current needs are and whatnot. And that was how staff ranked these with you know what, like I said, what we had viewed and you know if we were had our brothers. So what is the cost of these three? So from a cost standpoint um they're so what we're paying now and they're very smart, right? They know the top three that everyone wants. Sure. So, you might see a click C click fix and I'm just pulling numbers up, but that might be $500. Your community development director or your community development uh program might be $10,000. You know, I so they understand what the top issues are uh that people are going to be looking for. And the rest are nice to have but aren't as commonly purchased, you might say. I mean, for something like this, I mean, you guys must know how much that you're putting in doing everything, right? And I mean figuring out your time versus what the program costs, right? So when staff kind of got together and we're kind of looking at some of these options, I think the benefit of the staff is we're a small team and time is our commodity, right? And you could get 10 data requests and that's your week, you know, trying to fill these things. Um but the rest of your work doesn't disappear that you know it still needs to be done at some point too. So you start to get frustrated with the fact that you're getting behind. Same way with uh uh you know permit works right now is difficult to use. It's not being supported. Um so at some point we have to move out of that into something new. The benefit of using Civic Plus is first of all we're not the first one out of the gate and other communities are using this. kind of the bugs are worked out of the system, but because you have the website, because they have MUN code, because you know they they've been smart enough to integrate everything, so it works seamlessly together and um but everything comes with a cost. So, have you talked with other cities to see how they're using these programs and how beneficial they are to them? Um, I believe it's the city of Blaine uses the permitting uh software online similar to what how we would use it in um in respect to residents can go in if they you know if they have an account created they can go in and punch in an address and pull up and see okay well these are the current permits that are open these are the ones that you know have been pulled in the past and Um, I believe Lino Lakes has something similar as far as local cities. Um, I do have a list of other cities that aren't necessarily in Minnesota. Um, as far as samples if you would want if you'd want to see that. But, um, I believe it's Blaine that also uses Civic Plus this exact same module. Um, as far as time savings, we haven't really checked into what time savings would be for other staff. I have for myself for the agenda management module with the amount of time that I spend on putting together packets and you, like I said, getting the attachments in the right, you know, getting everything in the right order, getting all the attachments on there, getting them labeled, getting the pages numbered and all that kind of stuff. Um, I figured out that in the course of a year, the agenda management module would save just me 105 hours in staff time, just for council packets. That doesn't count our EDA packets, our work meeting packets, you know, if we were to do a work meeting packet, planning commission packets. That's what I mean. That's I mean that's good because I want you to figure it out that way because then we can look at it and say definitely this is a plus and helps you guys so you can do your job more efficiently and like I said it also kind of at least at least with that particular module um it eliminates me being a single point of failure when it comes to assembling things and pulling things together. You know, we have FA as my backup and she does a great job, but when she only has to do it once every three months, it's easy to fall out of practice, too. I agree. Thank you. Is this going to be a service that we have to pay for every year the same amount? Like, is the initial investment higher or is it going to stay? The initial investment would be higher for most of these. Um, but uh I think quite a few of them also have a subscript, excuse me, subscription fee as well. Have you look are there any other companies out there that you can compare prices with or is this the only one that offers these services? There are other website companies that will offer similar packages, not all of them. Um, and the benefit that we have is that we're currently going through the redesign with Civic Plus. Um, and like I said before, Civic Plus owns MUN Code who hosts our city code. So, that ties in together as well. Um, we could, you know, if we wanted to go with another company for our website, yeah, we could certainly do that. But then I would probably want to put the brakes on our redesign project right now and, you know, that we could tie Municode in with another company or whatever else and see, you know, see what kind of modules they offer. Um, I don't know that they have quite the variety in their module library. No. No. Um, I'm not sure what our current costs are as far as permit works. Um but like I said uh permit works we're having an issue getting support when we need it and um it is a access database that based program and I'm not sure how much longer that's uh access is going to be supported either as far as um IT wise. No, I I like all of these and I am all for saving you guys time because I do know how busy you are and how overwhelming it can be, especially as our city grows. I am a little concerned about a couple of things. The privac privacy on this permit thing um can where the I can go and look at somebody else's property records. Do they redact stuff automatically on on that particular aspect of it or only the files that are deemed as public would be accessible by the public? So they would just be able to see they do have a permit not all the correct itty bitty details of it. Like for example commercial blueprints are not public information. So we wouldn't want you know somebody to know where all the ins and outs are of a commercial building. That's, you know, that's a security risk that would not be accessible, right? And people's names and phone numbers because a lot of people don't want their name out there. You know, name names and addresses are public information, but email addresses, cell phone numbers, those that would be redacted information. All right. And then you you were talking about ADA compliance and stuff like that. I actually have a question not exactly related to that but when pe people are watching us if they are hearing impaired or is it closed captioning on the website and stuff like that on YouTube and stuff? not on the website, but that was part of why we created the YouTube channel is because the YouTube YouTube has it. Not only is it a free channel, but it does have a uh closed caption tool that somebody can activate. doesn't necessarily guarantee the accuracy all the time, which is why I'm always being a nag about speaking into the microphones, but um but it is a free tool for for anyone to access. Yeah. Because via YouTube. I I was just concerned because I was reading somewhere that some cities are being sued because they don't have a interpreter or something right present. So, I wanted when you mentioned ADA, that popped in my head. ADA compliance uh lawsuits are becoming quite common. Yeah. And I really do like the idea of getting packets. It every little bit of information helps getting it sooner, especially when you have a rocking schedule like I do. So, going forward here. So, Mr. Mayor, if you'd like, we can uh get some pricing put together, kind of um bring that back to another work session. We can talk through some of those issues, try and assess some of the time savings that that would happen. Um kind of get what permit works cost. We don't have that information right off the top, but we can get all that and come back and and present it and um see where you guys want to go with it. So, perfect. Okay, Mr. Mayor. Um, coming in here to East Bethl, one of the challenges that I've, uh, kind of seen staff struggling with is, um, this backlog of paper files that we have. And, um, we have files dating back to the beginning of time. and uh and there's been efforts to undertake digitizing or or essentially um getting them onto a computer so they can be filed under a property address. Um and kind of it, you know, w with this whole discussion of the website and the possibility of bringing in um a module that can allow people, for example, a realtor wants to know they're going to sell a property. when were when was the well work done on it? When was the roof done? You know, permits, etc., etc. And um and so today, what they're doing is they're calling in. Misty is going trying to find a paper file. Maybe it's not there, maybe it is there, maybe somebody else has it, you know, trying to trying to chase this file down versus being able to either have that realtor go online and pull down that information that they're looking for and not even generate a telephone call. um or um if they need to call in, we're able to access it quickly and and give them that information. So um one of the issues that we're challenged with here is what is the cost to image these files to digitize them and um and who would do that? Okay, so there are services out there that will will bulk scan everything you have, but we have different sizes, large format, small format. We've got uh if we've had to serve, you know, a property uh with certified mail, we've got the little green cards that are stapled that you have to pull off and you want to include that. So, it becomes complicated. Um and so we're trying to um assess first of all um what if we have a service do it versus what if we try and set up this side room here and uh and perhaps bring in some um high school students for the summer and train them how to do this and scan this and and get us through this this time. Or perhaps uh we get uh residents of the community that maybe are recently retired, want to give back to their community uh and uh and have the capacity to run through these files and get them into a format that we can going forward um essentially have everything we need. Now, one of the concerns that um I've had I and maybe it was brought on with the whole discussion of the fire chief um is what happens if we have a fire, all these files we have, it's just tender waiting to go up and if that ever ever were to happen, uh this city would be in in peril from the standpoint of a historical standpoint. So um I think it's absolutely critical that we get this um image that we get it um in a safe format have all the history there. We can we can um get them into property files so everything is categorized and neat and accessible and that'll not only serve um our staff but long after we're gone it'll serve everyone else that's trying to research a lot of this information. So, but then also it kind of dovetales with this website discussion. So, um if it is, uh something that the council would be supportive, we want to kind of determine get some estimates on what the costs would be to have this done by a service if that was the best route to go or if we can somehow put together a community campaign. I I envision somewhat like um uh your uh election judges, thank you, that come in and and are very sharp people, know what their job is, um can stay from beginning to finish, uh goal oriented, and succeed in in finishing a project like this. I think it's it's critical and um and if it if we get your blessing, we'll certainly um uh head down this road to try and secure what we have in the back. We have not only the property files, but we also have all the documents in the vault uh that are historical documents that are that are necessary for preservation. Um the vault might last a little longer in a fire, but um but probably won't last forever. So again, those those I think are at risk as well until we can get them into a into a digital format. So refresh my memory. I think we four or five years ago that we bought scanners just for right that's what I was going to ask um we we did get I believe uh two licenses for laserfish um since then laser fish is kind of a a top-end tool right now where we're working at is we have tools that we don't even have the ability to use right now Um what we're what we're considering looking at is possibly the the addition of a secondary share drive to scan the property files onto so more than two people can access those property files at a time. Um, right now if somebody were to call in and would like to have uh uh has a data request they want to look at the septic information for our property that's up for sale. Um Misty and Grace have access to that. None of the rest of us have access to that because we only have the two licenses. So if they're gone, you know, if community development is in a a department meeting, myself or any other staff, we couldn't even help out if we wanted to because we don't have access to those files. They're costly licenses. Laserfish is somewhat PDF is somewhat replacing laserfish now. Um I'm sure they don't care for that, but uh at any rate, I think our transition over to that would be make sense as well. uh save money uh doing that and I think ultimately have a more usable platform than we currently have. Yeah. And I just want to make a suggestion. If you're going to go in the community um election judge module of doing this, maybe you can rent a couple of really quick fast scanners way and I'm thinking it could be way cheaper than hiring out another company to do it. We're planning to look into that option as well. We But yeah, we do have to balance those costs, you know, because community will want to do it, but they're going to want something for it, too. I mean, I'll be like, I'll do it, but my time isn't free either. You know, I I use the example in the county the county was transitioning over to a um uh kind of a new uh system that received books in that was automated, but they all had to have a tag put on them. And so, they reached out to people in the community and say, "Hey, would you be willing to come in and dedicate x number of hours to putting tags on millions and millions of articles and books and whatever the case is?" and the community responded. They came in, they tagged everything and they helped the um helped save the county a tremendous amount of money um and got through that painful process. Uh and uh and so I think that people will step up if asked uh to do that. And so that's a little more work maybe to try and get folks to, you know, ask them and beg them and plead with them to help. But uh but it might work. and and also we may be able to find some uh uh high school students that are sharp and you know want to participate uh making a few extra dollars and we can train them to this is your task. Yeah. And I am seeing a lot of post of parents looking for their 15 16 17 year old something to do this summer. So you're they're usually pretty techy and it's air conditioned. I mean what there's really no downside anyways. So Mr. Mayor, if that's something you would like us to continue pushing forward on, we will. I wanted to bring bring it back to us. Absolutely. Okay. Item three, uh, Mr. Mayor and Council, uh, facility study. So, we've um we've uh I think in the past there's been some facility studies that have been done specific to a department uh but not citywide in terms of what is the age of your facilities, what are your needs of population growth comes um and uh and I think there's some talk about uh fire station 2 is kind of being outgrown. you know what, you know, if the community were to build another fire station, number one, what size would be needed? Where should it be located? You know, those type of questions. Doesn't commit to doing it, but at least arms you with information to uh prepare for the future or for future counselors to prepare for um you know uh decisions that they may have to make. Uh a study like this is not inexpensive as well. Um there's services out there that do this, but they take into account all the variables, your growth in population numbers, traffic, etc. Um and um and it's uh uh something that uh that we can certainly research, get some pricing on um and and see if that's something you want to pursue if if you guys want us to go down that road too. I know back in 199 but it's a good thing to have just to see where you're at start. I I I think we know we're vaultting on that issue, but I think um it's something that might need to wait till the next budget because from what I'm seeing, we got a lot of spending planning going on and planning to spend going on and I think we're going to have to we've got to put some things on the back burner. We just have to we we cannot commit to all this spending right now. That's my Would it cost anything just to check up on pricing? No. No, we can get a uh we can get an estimate on what that would cost. It'll be more next year, but they think we could at least do that. Yeah. Yeah. I think we can put an RFP out there and see what people what ser what agencies might respond to that. and um at least get a better understanding where what the costs might be if you guys were to decide to pull the trigger on that. So, all right on that. Okay, Mr. Mayor and Council, I've got the fire chief with me here um this evening and uh wanted him to kind of address the council a little bit on um the flooring situation and the different fire stations that we have. And uh I know he's gone out, he's gotten some quotes or a quote at least at this point and um and if uh if you'd like we can discuss a little bit about some of the needs we have in the fire station buildings. So chief y Mr. mayor, members of the council. Um, in just my short time here going through the stations and such, um, some of our floors are in in some need of repair. Uh, we have some significant, uh, chipping in that at station one. Station two um, looks like it was painted um, for lack of better words, with a roller. um you know, it wasn't necessarily a commercial coding that was put on that's peeling up. Um so in in tying back to um the facility study question um it's probably a little while before we're looking at potentially building a station um or renovating a station or anything of that nature. So, how do we make these stations last longer and survive what we put them through? We're putting 50,000 pound apparatus on them and that kind of stuff. So, how do we how do we do that? And one of the ways is these floor coverings. Um, both is who was up here today. Um, they gave us a quote on station two. They're working on a quote for station one. Um, and I will be getting them the information for station three. Um, we're just looking at what is it going to take to preserve these stations and make them last for as long as we need them to. Um, you can see up there the grand total for station two uh was $18,830 and some change, which comes out to be approximately $7.20 a square foot. that is to get the old coating up, prep the surface, fix any of the concrete, and then put the new uh commercial coating down. Um, is this a like the epoxy coating stuff you're putting down, or is it something different? So, it is an epoxy coating. However, they're not using that term anymore. So, I'm going to use that lightly. Um, just with not with that not being my expertise, I can't tell you exactly what They're terming it now. Uh but the new stuff um doesn't yellow like epoxy. Um it doesn't harden quite as hard as the epoxy does. It remains flexible, so it shifts with the concrete versus um breaking when when the concrete moves. Um Volt um is just one company of many. We have other um quotes also. Um some of them are older, 22, 23. I think there's one in 24. We would have to get those redone. We all know that prices have gone up over the years um in in recent times. Um Volt offers a 25-y year warranty on their floor covering system. Um which it's a decent time. Um, we we talked about doing station two in phases so that the apparatus could still stay in the station or at least the main apparatus could stay in the station. So, they do half of it one day, wait for it to dry, move the truck over, and then they come move uh and come do the other half. Um, there's cost savings if we just pull all the apparatus out and utilize other facilities to house the apparatus, let them do it all at once. uh that price actually comes out to be about 660 a square foot. Um if we're using those numbers, and I can't say that it's going to be perfect for station one, I did quick calculations. It comes out approximately $28,000 to do the sta the station one apparatus bay uh at $7.20. Um they're also quoting out the hallways and the radio room. Again, it's to put the maintenance back into the building so that they survive that much longer and are useful for our crews. Um, again, station three, I need to get the information for them. We started to go out there and that road's closed right now and we didn't want to take the detour. Station three is fairly easy to measure and he had confidence I could handle that. So, that one's painted on, too. Okay. Um, so again, we have the one quote. The other quotes we do have are similar in in price um that we've obtained. Uh, if you would like me to, I can continue going down that route and get multiple quotes and we can look at what that ultimate cost is. Yeah, Mr. Mr. Mayor and Council, I think um once the floor starts chipping up, your options are try and save it or you're going to you're going to concrete saw cut it up and repport it and that's going to be extremely expensive. So, um this is going to be your more reasonable option uh to try and save the flooring, but once it once it starts, if you don't catch it, it's it's not going to wait for you. It's only going to get worse. So, and I and I also want to say um in the budget every year we allocate $50,000 for facilities. Um and we have an account right now with about a half a million dollars in it. There was never anything spent in the past. The reasons why it's acred to that amount. Um but um but essentially things like this carpeting or the paint for the walls or whatever the case is, that's kind of what those dollars were intended for. We just put an HVAC system on this roof. Replace that. Again, what these dollars are for. So, we have the money in h, you know, already taxed from the people, shall we say, in an account ready and and to be used and, uh, and preserving our facilities, of course, um, is going to save the life of it. The ultimate cost is replacement, which is tremendous. So, That floor was replaced three times in the first year three times. That's why I'm not saying that my estimation is what it's going to cost. That is a different coding that uh than station two and three. So I don't know what the prep cost. Okay. Okay. But it was concrete wasn't properly. So you park the truck on there to keep I definitely say go for it. Get the quotes and bring them back. I I was kind of astonished at um when I was an election judge at some of the maintenance issues I've seen in the fire departments and stuff. So I it was kind of shocking. And I'm like, why aren't they doing anything with this? So, I've seen it. I know it needs to be done. Bathrooms need to be fixed. They're awful. How many quotes would you like to see? Three. I think three is a good one. Three is usually what's required. Okay, we'll do that. We'll get the quotes. We'll bring it back and um you guys can decide the direction that you want to go. So, sounds good. Thanks, Chief. This will be more than five minutes. So, we'll add it to the next work session. I don't think we need this time. We'll close the uh council work meeting.