good yeah are we good yes all right we will call the meeting to order it's March 27th 6 o'clock on the money and we are going to start with the Pledge of Allegiance all right City administrator Johnson will you please take roll call please mayor hibbit here ccil member Brian here council member Blazer here council member rainville here here uh interim City administrator Johnson I am here consultant Bo council member Swenson you're yet and fire chief Millan here uh roll call is completed oh and our administrative assistant deia so here perfect so nobody has forgot okay we would like to uh move on to approve the agenda um there's a couple things that I would like to adjust and then we'll go around and talk about some additional things um in the consent agenda I would like to add the resolution doesn't have a number on it but it's for a resignation of one of our firefighters I would like to make that G and then I would like to move um six hold I GNA find it right here 6C I would also like to move that to the consent agenda with the um with the permission for myself and the City attorne to discuss alternative measures and propose back to the city a solution so I would not like to discuss that tonight I would like to go that route is there any other agenda items that uh should be discussed Mr Mayor Mr mayor council R go ahead um rather than mo i my suggestion is rather than moving to consent when we get to that point you can ask that we table it um to allow you and the mayor to work on it to allow you and the mayor to work on it and we can we can absolutely go that route okay so the proposal is to leave 6C where it's at um and then as it comes up um I'll propose to uh make that same motion and Mr Mayor go ahead you are also going to pull 3C for discussion yes give me some insight on that one again what so Mr Brian can talk about it yeah yes he was gonna make that motion no I wasn't is that something you want to do cember BR we can yeah sure was there any additional points I think it would be helpful if you did cover it okay that's fine okay so should we move 3C then down to uh 6E we go that route yes Mr Mayor C Brian can we move 6B up to consent agenda that whichever letter that's next on the list you just want to go with staff recommendation on that yes if nobody opposes that um I think the staff recommendation is great on that I would definitely support that so I don't even know what letter that is in three anymore if we move it up but I would be fine with it h Mr mayor council member Glazer go ahead um I would propose that we move 3D down to new business um the reason being I think this is going to have um it's going to have an impact on um residents and it's going to have an impact potentially have an impact on the office as well as a result of the um you know the decision that the city is making as far as dust control was concerned and there's specific roads that are going to be covered I think it's a great idea so having more open discussion on that would be meets uh meets the intent for me all right any other agenda items that recommended to move I don't know who wants to summarize that because we move about six things but okay so I would make a motion to approve the agenda with all the discussion points we just added so we move multiple things from three to six and then uh one from six to no we didn't move anything up from six to three oh yes we did the projector 6B got moved up into the three colum anybody want to second that motion it prove be all right one second sir Council rainville I just um in the consent agenda under the meeting minutes in the I would like to just amend the March 12th minutes to have staff include approving of the agenda which was missed in the minut minutes abely okay thank you Mary all right so with that we will do since we have uh Council rainville still remote we will do roll call vote we'll start with counc member rainville I I council member Brian I council member swansson I council member Glazer I and myself is also an i motion carries agenda is approved okay we will open it up for the public forum do we have anybody signed up today to talk you guys sign up could you just go grab the sheet and verify so we don't miss anybody that signed up please who your first if you would please who's the first one signed up all right so we have two signed up which is uh Jason Dryden and Then followed by Tom leer um if you would please come up to the podium say your name and your address uh and if you would try to keep it to three minutes hi I'm Jason dren um 6700 Viking Boulevard um so my family has been dealing with an issue of changing lot lines and adding uh one lot to a property that most of the property we've owned for my families own for about 40 years issue is has been an ongoing challenge for over four years but in December of 2023 all signatures City approval by a 5- z vote all documents and agreements were signed and sent to the county to be recorded all parties were told this was the last step and should be able to now start finalizing building plans for the house to be built now fast forward to um 510 of 24 when Randy dead my parents applied for their building permit there was clarification phone calls back and forth for a couple of weeks and once a building department had reviewed the plans and okayed the the building it was still some time before they were issued a permit so they called and asked what uh why they're not issued a building permit and uh and they said their response was they were waiting on City Department or planning department to complete their review now C Nash is a newly hired city planner that to our knowledge wasn't apprised of our project when she started that's when the project took a turn for more C more coly and delayed issues during her self familiarization of the project she wouldn't accept or return calls from Deb my mother and but instead chose to contact the City attorney Bob R and Scott loner often several times a day we then get a notification that they want us to now build the driveway up to 26 feet wide and originally it was 15 foot wide in the original agreement at turn Lanes on Conor Road 22 sign Ag and uh basically a called the sack at the end of the driveway was n this was in the in the original agreement that was signed and basically done they wanted us to obliterate a driveway on a current house that's been there since like 1985 and add it to our shared driveway um which would have made the which would have made the uh our driveway have three residents on it so that would be why we need a wider driveway um which is never part of the original scope never talked about during the last four years of planning this project along with several other new demands that have not listed but we can if need be and they needed to be done before they issue a building permit all told Cindy and Rob's daily conversations added up to $796 to.5 along with one called the Hawkinson Anderson Engineering where grand total of $8,900 or $ 89750 on top of $9,400 worth of uh money they've already spent during this process and then $155,000 for uh surveyors to delineate Wetlands basically nothing ended up being changed and it was all a waste of time a grievance is for one why are we being charged for a new city planner to catch up to speed on our project why wasn't that part of her training to come on board with the city why weren't we included in these conversations so we could explain the situation why did she go to the most expensive person she could talk to and ask the questions uh who paid her and Bob when there wasn't money in the escrow for such costs why was it okay what and why did it take so long to get an invoice from their bills to my parents which was several months and most importantly is why is the city planner and engineered allowed to add to rack up $8,000 worth of bills to the residents and we are expected to just pay them or not get a billing permit or certification certification of occupancy with basically no checks and balances nobody said yes you can talk to them or not they just basically kind of went wild in charges for it how many of the people just pay these costs because fighting the city is just too hard why are the only people coming out of this unscathed Cindy Nash and Bob r with thousands of dollars extra in their hands and why doesn't our city have our backs on that's all good thank you so Tom Tom laser been here for 10 years uh first meeting I've attended um so I don't know actually how it all works I put my name down speak but I do miss the sign out front that actually notified people driving by of these meetings because this was a very hush hush meeting um very few of us knew about it I don't go on to the web page every day but uh that electronic sign that is gone should be brought back to notify all the residents of meetings such like this thank you okay thank you okay public forum is complete we'll move on to the consent agenda sir mayor ran make a motion to approve the consent agenda as amended okay is there a second I'll second all right second we'll do roll call vote starting member starting with council member Brian please I council member Swenson hi council member Blazer hi council member rainville hi hi and I'm also an I so the consent agenda motion carries and is approved okay we will move on to number four Fire Department chief chief Miller would you please give us an update thank you mayor council members um I'm here tonight just to talk about and present our Emergency Operations plan for the city um it's something that should be updated about every five years it's a barebones plan that that gives the citizens um in the city um peace of mind that in the event of a major emergency um we've got a plan in place to to to um have the uh the continuity of government survive so things like um tornadoes windstorms um blizzards um civil unrest things like that are all covered in the plan um and it it's a framework that allows City staff to to work through any issues or problems that uh may arise in an emergency so um this was developed by the by the no County Emergency Management team um prior to to my self taking the job um they contacted me and said they had completed a plan for us um so I accepted the plan um took a look at it um uh made some local changes for us um and then uh I we see the plan that's present in front of B for any questions with this I had a couple things I would like to just I brought up and some of them I brought up right before the meeting but y um one is this a great framework because I don't know that the city's ever had an EOP at all emergency operation plan I think it's fantastic um that you have a structure I think the framework looks overall very good very interesting that talked about a tabletop exercise I really look forward to doing that because with any good plan if you don't exercise that plan um it's nothing but a plan and it just gets dust on it uh the other one was the all the is training is7 100 200 700 800 uh I look forward to some information on that for anybody who has not attended them I think I've completed them all but I may have one more to go do I would like to add contractors that we have in our city I think this is an important piece so as you talk about a flood um one of the things is if we have some we have some Escavating contractors that should be added right in here and then a contact phone number list so I think the bones are there the framework is there uh we just need to add to it but I like what you presented yeah absolutely so so once this plans accepted by the council then we'll go back we'll add the contractors in um that are local and build those lists out but we have to accept the plan first before we can add those any other council members have questions on the mayor M sson um you just said that this is a brand new plan and we hadn't had one before but in the plan it references the original plan of 2020 was there a plan in 20 I can't speak to that um maybe somebody with history who may have had a plan um but I certainly when I took took over in January I had no records of that and it could have been either kept by the city um or Ramsey fire prior to my arrival so Mr mayor council member rainville to council member Swinson uh we we did have a plan um it was done many years ago with the fire chief from Ramsey uh and we did hold one tabletop exercise but we haven't done anything recently we haven't done anything recently so I stand corrected then it's a great update to the plan thank you Chief Miller for working on this chiefer working on this you're welcome thank you uh my follow-up question was going to be how has the plan changed from 2020 but it sounds like this one was more or less just written from Scratch by the emergency planner it sounds like it from what I tell what I can tell because again I don't have the the original planner what was in place in 2020 so it's it would be hard for me to answer that question thank you any other questions for chief Miller no questions we will move on to uh would somebody like to make a motion Mr Mayor counc rainbow I would move that Council accepts the Emergency Operations plan as presented operations plan has presented good do we have a second second all right we'll move on to roll call vote starting with council member Swinson hi council member Glazer hi council member rainville hi I counc member Brian hi I'm also an i motion carries um so emergency operation plan framework is uh is approved thank you all right next we'll move on to administrative update so Miss Johnson if you could provide that yeah thank you Mr Mayor um I attended the mcfa which is a m Municipal Clerk's um conference last week I learned quite a few new things quite a few things that again we haven't been doing and should be um do you want me to kind of just run through a little bit what I learned highlight that please yes okay so uh one of the things is many of the clerks um Statewide and internationally they have something called stays 9 to-5 and it just basically was make and remind people Council residents um with clear communication and boundaries and to start setting some boundaries so one of the emails that I did send out to you guys today does kind of indicate that um and it is something that is a standard practice so I just want to make sure it's there it it's also uh parts of it is part of State Statute with data practices things um we learned about Emergency Operations which was good with working with Chief Miller um Brian olssen from Homeland Security was there it was very interesting um we talked about public disaster planning um individual assistance versus um a community Assistance meaning if a tornado wiped out 12 houses and everything else was fine it would be some sort of um a process that they process that they can uh assist us with there is also a large dis uh disaster fund where I didn't realize that the state can actually help fund some of that as well if anything comes through um and it would be the county that has to help declare the uh the disaster it's not actually the city which was something I didn't quite understand that either I always thought it would have been the mayor the was the city does recommend too maybe we have to recommend it to the county but the county is the one who actually has to go to FEMA um they suggest we have some printed brochures just to be made that in case of a disaster that we should have something in place more than just the Emergency Operations plan to give to Residents and say okay if there is a big tornado coming this is where you should go if you're a Public Employee this is where you should go if you are you know a firefighter if you're expecting a um huge snowstorm with lots of power outages firefighters should be at the fire station or would expected to be at the fire station for such disasters that kind of stuff so that was new um also they recommended before a disaster happens that you create a disaster donation fund so it would be more for you know how they go on TV and say oh such and such happened and they're collecting like for North Carolina when the Hurricanes went through if you didn't have a disaster fund already established it's really difficult to get it established so that when people want to donate because as Americans we tend to want to help each other during disasters you want to have something that's already set up so that was really interesting as well so I think I'm going to add that to our goal list at some point just in case something ever comes through hopefully it never does but it would be nice to be able to have that available uh also learned about FEMA grants I was going to talk to the chief about that um they thought that there may be some um FEMA grants available that could help with our Sirens um and some things like that and that those grants weren't as hard as most so I that was something I wanted to talk about um with that we talked a lot about social um social networking using the Facebook pages and the websites and how it is really good to make that connection with your residents um we talked about during uh night to unite that we try to have everybody kind of around the lines usually host it they suggested that the cities actually host it um and and ask Community Gatherings to come um and in that while you're getting your residents there to have a survey so that the questions that we may not all know the answers to or you're only getting 10 people on Facebook complaining about one thing that you can get everybody's opinion or at least the people that are participating in the in the city functions um one of the other options would be in your community um event meaning our heritage festival that the city does not sponsor that but we could have a booth there that could also have um almost like your town hall meeting that we want to have but to be able to let the residents talk and get their feedback that's direct and again not just the same few that are on Facebook all the time um that was really interesting and how they're doing all of that um I also found out that there is a certification process that I'm probably about 30% there already anyway that I didn't know was there so that's kind of fun to be able to get that it's goes on points um and we also talked about some OSHA grants um that they may be able to help us with flashing lights and such if there was like a road closed like when the CT had to be replaced this week we could have potentially put up flashing lights so that the residents could see that so that is something else that Chief and I will be working on is to see if that's something we can do um I also attended a class called the small town round round table which is kind of fun because we're not really a small town when I would talked to some of them they had less than a thousand people um I was one of the largest cities in the small town um again they talked about trying to get your city involved in more things have your um Community make recommendations on Parks and using the surveys that way when you're face Toof face with people not necessarily social media unless you want to do like a Survey Monkey where anybody can respond and it's Anonymous but it can only come from one IP address but we the problem is we don't have all of our residents emails when the new website goes up we will be able to collect emails from anybody that might want an electronic newsletter instead of trying to send those out uh paper because the cost of post is is so much once we would have that LT list I think a Survey Monkey would be great or we could possibly put a link on the new website that will work much better with cell phones where they could do a survey there too so if there's things when we're doing our town meetings that we want responses from the um residents that would possibly be a good way to do that as well um a lot of offices are in the same situation as we are where the small cities have to do all the same work as a large city which would be one of the reasons things get binded especially when we're short staff when we think about to last summer I only had two people in the office most of the summer and a general election going on so that was a lot of cities are in that same same Force um um one of the other things they asked about is creating a task force for things that what does the city want you know have a task force again kind of like the town meeting that you want to have ask a few residents to get together and say what is the city's Vision what do you want to do what do you want to do with the Memorial Park do you really want another shelter at Twin Lakes or do we just want to really repair and fix up the ones that we have that kind of stuff so it's not just a five person decision where the city can be a little more involved and that seemed like a really good idea I had thought um and sourcewell now you and I talked about that today Chief which is is that the kind of the same as the state funding that you said where it's already taken care of and bid so oh green light please because this is really interesting as well I'm sorry so uh equipment's already bid it out so you don't have to go to multiple biders because all sourcewell does all that pricing um up front um so it makes buying equipment or acquiring equipment at the at the best price um very very easy kind of One Stop Shop so instead of sourcing and going out to get three bids it's already complete already complete we don't have to do the bidding so um for an example if we needed a um a new plow truck um I know the dump trailer on or the dump part of Joe's truck and it's on our Capital Improvement plan to order one we won't actually have to go out to bid to do that I can go right through this either Source ball or through the state all the bidding is already done and we can just order it right through them which was again something I didn't know I learn way more all the time than I need to um well not more than I need to another class was the elections update it was H quite interesting with the um presidential uh nomination um earlier the February one um only 13.6 people actually participated in that presidential or presidential primary so I thought that was it um one of the other things and it was Paul Lenell who used to be our in NOA County elections director so he's now at the state level and in charge of everything there so it was interesting to hear him talk too one of the things and one of the highest costs that we had is that we had to translate every election for every district for every school district for every Ward um if you had a certain percentage of your population in a different language it had to be translated into he said 16 different languages for all three elections so not only did you have your ballots in English but you also had to have so many in each one and a translator needed to be available that was something I mean I knew we had to have some in a different language but I didn't realize I no County would have had to and many of the clerks in Anoka County talked about how difficult it was to keep all of those ballots separately for each one of their Wards and each one like for us Precinct two is only St Francis Precinct one is a NOA County or is in NOA schools and Elk River schools so imagine there's some districts that have three schools in it that would have been on the ballots too so that was interesting and I thought that that I just thought that was kind of a lot um the primary um only had 12.8% voted which I thought was really low um as far as that and a lot more people went on to a permanent absentee list meaning they will always get their mail uh their mailin ballots rather than um have to go in you no longer have to come in to request a mailed ballot you no no longer have to request that they said they had over a 100,000 people sign up for that is that in the state of Minnesota where you're this was just the state of Minnesota yep they also added student housing um needs to have a place to vote which again created issues for an NOA County because if you did it at an NOA Ramsey a lot of people are they don't live on site so they would have had to have all of the ballots for all of the districts or Wards or precincts in Anoka County there because so many of those students could vote like if you lived here it was here if you lived in I don't know you could live farther down in Rapids and go to that one or you could live even in Elk River which made it more difficult because it was a different County so that was another good I mean an expensive cost for the state and the cities um they also restored the vote therefore our numbers came in a little bit different because they did a restore to the vote to felons who are no longer incarcerated are now ready to vote Minnesota has always been number one beating Wisconsin which was a big deal we did not beat Wisconsin this year they had the most votes um we didn't our general election had 76.4 per for 76.4% of the voters that were registered to vote actually voted in Minnesota um that was a very large increase they were very pleased with that however because we added all of the felons that probably didn't all know that they could vote our percentage was a little bit lower than Wisconsin and the state was a little sad because they always have a competition going between the two of them and Wisconsin beat us that was pretty interesting um for 2025 26 there are some new requirements coming up um you the witness requirements for an absentee no longer needs to be a registered voter it just needs to be a United States citizen um the candidates filing requirements have changed a little bit with that and you can also they're working on an online absentee application um where proof of AD or address and affidavit would have to be on there um and you would have to be a resident of the district for 30 days prior to the election I believe that's coming up because of the special election that was needed this year um State offices people need to be a resident for six months which is a new change the early voting was a huge deal for many of the clerks many of the counties and I guess we made enough of an uproar because 46 days ahead of time was very very difficult it was not only difficult for the larger cities who have many precincts it was extremely difficult on the smaller cities because when you don't have the staff and your whole day is being spent doing your absentee or your direct balloting nothing else in the office was getting done and I can attest to that um um the proposed legislation is called OSS technical Bill and they're making it they're going through and trying very hard to reduce that 46 days to not a have to have the cities accept all the actual absentees that need to go into an envelope um and I don't know if you all understand the process but there's three different kinds of voting you can do absentee voting which is you make an application you get an you get your ballot it goes into an envelope we witness it that it's there that you did it you sealed it it's actually in two envelopes that goes into a secure area and then it is securely brought down to in NOA County they open them all up they have one judge opens it to take the one envelope out another judge opens the manila folder with your ballot in it and another one validates the ballot before it gets counted so what they're trying to do is make it so all of those kind of things have to go directly to the county and take that off of the Cities which would be incredible and they're also trying to reduce not that it's going to happen but it is trying to go through and it's on a bill reduce the 46 days to 18 days for us to accept um direct balloting and that is when you come into the office you fill out an application saying you want a ballot you take the ballot and then you slide it right into the machine there were more people that did the direct balloting than they ever have before um so the first I think it's 22 days was the mail in and then the the rest of it was direct so if we can drop that down to the 18 days you can um hopefully staff accordingly um I know for the 2026 budget I will be asking for um dedicated either dedicated judges or dedicated staff for those direct bading days because it's impossible to get any work done very difficult it was it was absolutely horrible to try to get those done um and that is about it there were you know Bunches of other things but those were the things that I thought were important and that were good pieces of knowledge for me to get when we went there um I'd like to bring one thing up you talked about maybe doing a brochure for the um tying into the emergency operation plan maybe that's something we could add to our website so it's always accessible for sure they're great but when you need them you might not be able to find them or if we have it on the city website good idea um and if I may Mr I would like to address the gentleman who talked about a sign yes I have been here for three and a half years and there's never been a sign out front I I don't know anything about it though but if Dan or Mary have some education on that I would be happy to do so Mr Mayor Bri yeah we had an electronic sign out there for several years even going back to Township days the problem is it got so old that we couldn't get parts for it anymore so instead of replacing it it was more cost effective to just remove it and take advantage of our um emails and websites and Facebook and and other announcements like that okay so we don't anti anticipate going through or is that something I should add to a to-do list at some point we can think about to the council but I don't think we need to with the technology we have today because we literally had to have an extra computer in here that was directly wired up to it and that was the only way you could change it um it just got to be too much so I think technology today we don't necessarily need a sign okay um and then I would also just like to point out that we did schedule this meeting back in January it has always been on the schedule when we chose to do two meetings a month um through the month of May correct through April through April okay so it's been on the schedule it is not been a closed meeting and nothing was Hush Hush about it because it was on the website it was on the um the packet has been on the website as well as since Monday and the agenda was up in where it's required to be at the city hall on the Bing board on Friday it was also on social media yes so I if there's anything else I'll stand for questions any questions at all all right thank you Natalie let's move on to new business going 6A talking about the interim wage council member rainbow go ahead sor Sor I couldn't get my finger on the unmute so I have a question to Natalie um you had talked about the clear communication and boundaries and um the fact that you sent out that email today and I'm just wondering what the reasoning was for asking for the time cards back from November to Cur to will you state your question again Council rille I am wondering what the reasoning was that the council member requested time cards requested back from November to current time from November to time I I'm unsure it just was to review I'm not sure and the council member who counc who council member rille this council member Glazer okay I requested that information based on some inform some uh research that I've been doing as a result of um a payroll report that we received back in February um and I did not think it was inappropriate for any council member to ask to review time sheets when I think you can attest to the fact that this is something that you yourself used to do and I as a result of my request for that information it it's something that that I will um information that I needed for our first agenda item for new business C rainville answer your question so well to just to clarify I I have requested them but I've done them through data practice requests and um they were pertaining to specific things that maybe Council was dealing with um I I I just don't I didn't I didn't understand why these were being requested it should have been Council Direction it should have been Council Direction Mr Mayor can I answer that only be I would like to answer that because most of you probably haven't gotten the email yet that I sent out setting some of those boundaries a little bit and because we have so many new people I guess I didn't what I was well you could just read the emails and you'll understand that I'm assuming this come out sometime today it did it did came out today um kind of setting the boundaries a little bit but it was um yesterday while I was super busy I thought somebody was coming in to do an agenda review not the questions and that was probably my mistake however it was something that I thought okay it's time to do the boundaries and get it out to all all the new people Mr Mayor I need I need a point of clarification I had never I had never ever committed to um a packet review on On th on Wednesday I had I had told inter administrator Johnson on Monday that I would not be attending I did I told you I would not be attending Wednesday's meeting because of other commitments that I had I was supposed to be working so I did not tell you was going to be there I told you I couldn't be there no and I misunderstood when you said you wanted to come in for questions on Thursday and I said you could and I assumed and again that was my fault and that's I'm taking responsibility for that yeah but I was completely swamped and then got flustered as all because I had so much going on with the audit I personally have not read the email um but all I could ask is if you're coming into the city I would ask for coordination to let know hey this is my intent and this is when I'm F on coming in I think that just common courtesy again I hav and and that was done Mr Mayor perfect okay are we good to move on to 6A all right hearing no objection to that 6A is a resolution for interim interim wage increase for additional responsibility Mr Bo would you like to uh talk about you um RCA please absolutely Mr Mayor members of the council back to the last item I've been looking for policy language which I was told existed that might clarify these things for you it may be me but I I haven't found them yet which which policy is that Mr this would be policies with respect to coming in to see the St Etc um that I was told that they had been done and maybe they're right in front of me and I just don't understand them so the The Hope was pardon me um The Hope was that we could do something that's clearer and so three of you aren't kind of out in the dark um on that sort of issue it's just a human relations de we'll get her straight that GRE yeah mayor members of the council U on uh December 12th 20204 uh Natalie Johnson took over the role as a as interim City administrator at least that's what your resolution says um she took over that responsibility as you know because Scott Luna left us and the community at the time she was earning $39 hour with overtime today she's earning $39 an hour plus overtime and I happened to see this and thought to myself well G was that must have been an oversight that that must be uh normally when you take on more responsibility you get more benefit out of it and the benefit is normally in the form of dollars and benefits that did not happen so I started looking around uh and uh indeed it's true she's making $39 an hour uh with overtime and uh so I happen to ask uh uh Mike hemple um who is an expert in such things um is this an appropriate wage for an interim City administrator recognizing she doesn't have years of experience but she does have some experience as you heard she's getting a lot fast like out of a fire hose um and he suggested that what we could do to recognize this additional responsibility that she is under taken is to increase the rate and his number was 4875 an hour um if you look at the amount of overtime she's worked at the $39 uh an hour uh and you compare that to the 4875 which also would have overtime applied then she would actually be getting a a pay raise uh during the course of the Year assuming her over time where as it currently is I can see no reason why it wouldn't be given the amount of work flowing through here on a daily basis at least on the three days I am here um there was also a suggestion that well maybe we just change it to uh $53 an hour no overtime uh or even $60 an hour the problem is with both of those don't don't those don't give us give her uh the amount of income assuming the same amount of overtime uh that she'd be making uh with the 4875 so U the intent or the request of the council is to increase her wages to 4875 plus overtime uh for more than 40 hours a week and of course that would discontinue at such time as this new city administrator comes here unless the new city administrator happens to be her her or some other circumstances that could occur you have a resolution in your packet mayor and members of the council which would accomplish that says effective December 12 2024 the wage of for because it it will be um in the past wage of 4875 per hour is hereby approved for Natalie Johnson while she serves as interim City administrator the hourly rate is subject to the payment of overtime for hours work uh in a 7-Day period by the way one of the council members brought up a very good point she was these are typically salaried positions in other words you don't get overtime well the fact of the matter is and this is using experts inut you can do that on a short short-term employee on an interm employee comple my comple confirmed that fact and in fact an earlier agenda item confirmed that in writing to you an earlier agenda item I'm sorry his letter is not in there but I can get it for you uh so that is the request May our members of the council be glad to answer any questions you might have so I just got one clarification so Mike's um recommendation is the 4875 4875 plus over Mr Mayor if I may ask how do you know how exactly Mike uh arrived at that number was it comparing to other interim position he was this is their business and and they a lot of uh jobs they fill and he said uh 75 to 100 bucks an hour can work now that probably works for a tenard uh City administrator so he was using that and then discounting it bringing it back down to 4875 but that's a number he felt comfortable uh recommending to us now he doesn't have to pay that I understand um he also has a Personnel professional in his own office and she does work in fact you'll meet her along the way um she does work on analyzing various positions and uh setting up pay grades and dollars uh and she confirmed as well that Fair Labor stand Standard Act would allow this sort of thing in other words overtime paid during a a period of temporary uh accountability Mr Mayor that's more go ahead Mr Bo this particular item was on the agenda back in let's see we're in March was it on the agenda originally in February that the mayor tabled it could have been so so this is a third B of the app so council member Brian and I had a packet update with you the day before that council meeting right and and and had lengthy discussion with you about it and and at the time and I'm still trying to understand and how or why the mayor tabled it the following day but these are the same exact numbers yep that so what what my question is the mayor tabled it at that council meeting so that so and and I believe if we go back and and either check the um the minutes or listen to the recording the mayor said because we need to do some more research so is it safe to assume that at that point Mike hemple hadn't seen this I'm not sure of the answer there but so is it is it possible that that Mike hemple is just taking your numbers that you had on that on that request for Council action that was his number yes so but you just told me that you're not sure whether Mike hle had act had input to that RCA for that previous council meeting yeah I don't recall but I know he said the 4875 was a defensible number okay we think what your real question is why is well I don't have it personally but I know we could find it it it's yeah the numbers those numbers are the same going from $39 to $48.75 I'm just curious as to why Mr hemple um I'm I'm asking if Mr hemple had done his research prior to for the previous request for Council action and that's why that number was on there but Mr Bo isn't is telling me he's not sure let's pretend that Mr Bo I don't pretend at anything oh okay I really I really don't it's not it's not in my character to pretend ask my wife um but uh um so that that's that's one point I would like to make that it it just to me it's ironic that Mr hemp's number is exactly the same as yours from can you pull up that resolution do we have it on the computer or we could pull it up the resolution from the past resolution in February yeah from February pardon me it is he right the same it is the same is it I don't remember I remember it was around 40 what I can't recall specifically that I talked to him I gotten a written form from him I was concerned about the statement made that it is inappropriate with respect to the fair labor standards act and then learned from two people who I regard as experts that it is not that that is not a problem and that was the basis for the $53 and the $60 which you two proposed we didn't propose 60 we proposed 53 because that's what Mr ler was making prior to his departure okay so 60 never came up um and there'll be some I have some more discussion points as as we go along here um you might well continue on if she's looking at up um so one of the one of the points that that Mr Bo made in the first paragraph of let's see and I don't mean to interrupt but I did pull that up from the February meeting and the number should be the same correct it is $39 to $48.75 yeah does it say 4875 yeah and the logic was it was a 25% raise it looks like so so in in the first paragraph of this R in the first in the first paragraph of this RCA at state city council by resolution appointed Natalie Johnson interim City administrator until she relinquish the additional responsibilities presume presumably when the long-term administrator arrives most likely in August of 2025 I would like to point out and if people need copies of it that a resolution was voted on and approved by the city council last December um effect or for I believe it was voted on in November effective December 12th um whereas the city council approves the immediate appointment of Deputy clerk Natalie Johnson to acting City administrator and that shall hold the position until such time as the council deems it appropriate to return her to her existing title all other terms of her employment remain the same um so pay was never I'm not saying that we that somebody having all these extra responsibilities shouldn't be paid more but there's some points that that that we need to discuss tonight so it it's not it's not up to um interim administrator Johnson to decide when she wants to relinquish these responsibilities I didn't mean to mean that I can see how you'd interpret it by the way I had talked to Mike she just reminded okay okay that's great thank you for that but it it it is the council's decision how long Miss Johnson serves in this in this role and responsibility now I'm going something that I'd like to share is that I was under the impression that I was at the meeting in December um we were all aware that you were coming back on board after you finished your stint at the city of Kenyon and I was under the assumption that Miss Johnson would serve as interim administrator until you Mr Bo came on as our contract administrator but lo and behold your contract for 2025 which was in the consent agenda for our very first meeting in January shame on me as a new council member has you as an assistant administrator why is that why why was your contract so different from which which I have a copy of for 2022 where it had you as the interim administrator as the expert with you know Mr Bo you have close to 50 years of experience why are we employing you at $100 an hour as an assistant administrator well I tell you I I wasn't subject to those discussions back and forth okay that was some a decision someone uh on your behalf me so but I saw it I kind of went oh that's a different kind of title I've worn a number of different kind of titles as you might see understand um I don't know why they tried that but I think uh it was to try and give her more experience over time am I doing substantially different than what I might do yeah in some respects I'd have to agree but go ahead I'm sorry finish but I can tell you we are making enormous project progress in a whole variety of areas and I appreciate that's irre work from your perspective I'll have more but go ahead Oh I thought you ra your hand um so my point here Mr Mayor is we have our Deputy clerk is serving as our interim administrator right now um and uh publicly Miss Johnson has stated that it's not a a job that she's really interested in doing we have Mr Bo who's who has Decades of experience as an administrator we we're paying him a very handsome wage at $100 an hour it's costing us $3,000 a month plus travel and then and then we're also proposing to have an interim administrator that we're paying a higher wage to and where when when does when does the city council decide you know what we have to do as far as the budget is concerned because we haven't budgeted for for all this extra overtime okay so you know that's a that's a concern of mine why why do we have essentially two administrators for a city the size of now then Mr may I gu um you know I I think by all accounts the interim uh City administrators is doing a good good job I mean I've only been around for a little bit now but she seems to be doing a good job and it it's I mean I think it's obvious on his face that if she's doing a different job with more responsibilities taking on those responsibilities that she be paid appropriately for that and it it sort of seems to me that um your arguments or points council member Glazer are more about you know not that not that Natalie is doing a bad job and they're four doesn't deserve a raise but why are we also paying Frank $100 an hour and it's sort and I might be putting words in your mouth or thoughts in your head and you correct me if I'm wrong but it sounds like you're sort of advocating for uh Natalie to bump back down to Deputy City Clerk and then Frank to take on maybe more responsibilities and hours at $100 an hour that seems and if if I'm wrong I'm sorry but if I'm right that seems like that would end up costing us more money than just adjusting Natalie's paid to the job that she's doing so to to and I I understand your question another question that I have that that we had in in a conversation with M Mr Bo at the um packet review meeting um involveed the amount of overtime that that that the city is inuring so in in 2024 the city budgeted for $5,000 of overtime we incurred over $21,000 of overtime in for 2025 the budget has has only had zero doar for office staff overtime the um the uh uh Public Works is separate um right right now just our interim City administrator is already at $7,000 through seven pay periods my my question to you back in um February was we added 70 man hours per week in November at the request of then City administrator laner to to help support office staff specifically Miss Johnson and Lexi Johnson so we added 10 hours to Lexi springing are up to 40 and we added two 30 hour a week part-time employees yet you're working 30 hours a week as an as an administrator supposedly do supposed to be doing what Scott laner was doing but and yes is taking on more responsibility but why isn't some of that why are we still incurring so much overtime we're on we're on track to you know potentially incur you know $3,000 to $40,000 worth of overtime plus paying um in an inter own assistant administrator potentially you know $150,000 which exceeds you know what we were paying administrator ler and even what the midpoint of what we're proposing to pay a new administrator that we're searching for Mr Mayor custom Swanson um since you have reviewed all the time cards and overtime and all that I'm just curious do you know if well to respond to your hours thing first of all it sounds like I mean if you're going to do the math on the hours we also have to subtract out the 50 hours the previous City administrator was working I mean I have no idea how much he works is it fair to say he was working 50 hours a week 45 hours a week would have been salary salary 112,000 bucks a year but it's still is that right I think was 18 okay I'm sorry and so it's not so much about the pay but the amount of hours because that's it sort of seemed like that's what you're arguing like we added 70 hours in November but how many hours of work did we lose from the existing City administrator if we lost 50 hours for I mean I think it's reasonable that you know filling in for a city administrator that just left you know it might require a few extra hours be beyond the 50 or whatever he was spending so I think I think it would be appropriate to add that loss of ours to the equation but my question is about the unbudgeted overtime um you know I I I get it I understand that I would certainly want it to stay within the budget and I don't want to be frivolously paying a bunch of overtime for work that might not be necessary or not being um done very efficiently but I you know we lost the city administrator and so I think the hours did need to be stepped up so I mean I think there's a logical explanation for the overtime but my question is if you know it did we end up spending Less on payroll in the city office when you subtract out the city Administrator salary at the end of the year when you all when you lump in the overtime take out the city Administrator salary are we actually spending less money on the city staff or are we still over with the extra overtime this is something that I think we need to look at further to to verify but I I do have I do have another point because we're talking about P we're talking about pay overtime um to your point Mr Bo and if maybe you can maybe you can help explain this to me um our City attorney has present presented us with um a new Personnel policy for us to review and bring our questions back to April 11th on on page 18 of that document which is page 113 of the of the packet itself and I'm assuming that these are comments made by uh made by the attorney I yeah um and forgive me I don't know how to pronounce his last name well neither do I um so I think it's all all Sites so so attorney all Sites States in here um while Frank commented I think that the city council will be finding that if a interim interim in quotes less than one year position occurs which does not normally receive overtime that the city council May pay overtime in that temporary situation as an inducement to keep the position filled I'm assuming this is next the uh the attorney uh attorney all Sites we are going to have to be careful about that if an interim position is salaried exempt under flsa Fair Labor and standards act it is improper to pay them overtime with that being said to induce retention of an interim position the base salary could be increased which is I'm assuming you know you know the 53 so so I understand that Mr humle has has done some research and he has some industry experience but this is this is some some dialogue some conversation between you and our City attorney and City attorney kind of contradicts what Mr humle said so any response to that yeah um his supervisor thinks just the opposite way I mean it's kind of the the way the law operates in some unique situations who supervisor I don't see any comments from Bob Ruby contradicting that well because Mark was responsible really with the two of us Bob was not involved well he may have been involved behind this stuff but that's not what I'm aware I'm not aware of any specific activities he was involved and we can we go back to those employees again sure those are fairly young employees uh it's their first time I think in the job market maybe second what's happening is they're starting coming up the speed there's a heck of a lot of things to learn and they are learning them and as they learn them it becomes aside from this week perhaps as an exception a little more tolerable pace of activity and hopefully a St stabilization of the funks am I saying that right or am I I don't want to create even they were hired in November you are correct councilman Glazer um they were all hired but they were brand new they had no idea what they're doing um they had to be trained and I can honestly tell this Council for the three and a half years I've been here all I have done is train uh Lexi would be the longest employee in the office that has stayed besides myself this city has had three turnovers of Staff um and if we want to stable people we need to feel appreciated and not taken advantage of so Mr Mayor any other council members want to council rainbow go ahead um I want to go back a little bit um when Frank was originally brought in we had nobody so Frank was taking care of everything for City administrator was taking care of everything Natalie was brand new she came with a lot of business background a lot Personnel background supervisory background all in the private sector she had to then learn public sector accounting which is apples to oranges she's done an excellent job um the staff Natalie is correct we had lot of Staff turn over and every time staff turns over it's a new learning experience a new teaching experience and when you're trying to teach somebody you don't get done what you need to be done I don't honestly believe that Natalie Works 30 30 minutes more than she needs to um she's a very dedicated employee veryy makes sure that timeline lines and deadlines Are Made made like in the last two weeks she's been out of the office for the conference this week she's been in audit is there and that takes fulltime attention you ever been part of an audit and maybe you have but so you can't get your work done so then you need to come in early or you need to stay late to get those things done so I you know any Natalie is Natalie is an employee who any other municipality or private business would be happy to have and I think we should pay her according to the the RCA that has been presented to us we can hash out the details after I believe she needs to be compensated for her the work that she's doing on behalf of the city the work she's doing onf of the city Mr Mayor M go ahead I have one more I have something else to share so and and council member rainville this this ties into your questioning why I asked for the the data yesterday for time sheets in in the report the payroll report that was submitted it to the entire Council back in February it was it was based on an original request from February 11th where I actually in my email I asked for time sheets um I was given a I was we were all given a financial report and there were some for me there were some red flags and I thought I needed to look into it further that precipitated me continuing to ask for the time sheets and when I came in yesterday I believe that I have found that an employee or employees are being paid overtime contrary to the city's policy contrary to flsa and contrary to the state how the state dictates employers pay overtime it is it's and if anybody needs a copy of it I have I have copies of um what was approved back in at the October council meeting in regards to how overtime is acred um which coincides with um what our City attorney has given us as far as our our policy that we're going to review and and the item that I'm specifically referring to is that PTO and holiday time does not factor into the sum of hours worked to determine how overtime is paid are you aware of that policy Mr Mayor so I have read that but this has not been an approved Personnel policy that I'm attracting to so so the city has a policy that incorporates that language and right and right now I think that the council has a responsibility to do its due diligence to vet this out and to make sure that if if this is the case if it's not I'll apologize but if it's the case the council has a responsibility to to rectify the situation and and and correct it can you you keep it in your pocket for three months what am I keeping in my PO I didn't keep anything in Myck apparently some some thing that has got you very suspicious and okay what we would have liked and in fact I think you were asked every time you came in can you tell us what you're looking for we'd be glad to help you you said no I'll know it when I see it which to me is something's and then Mr Mayor go ahead I I made my original request in February in an email and it clearly states in the email I was asking for time sheets I came in I came in one other time and Miss Johnson was not in the office and and the Junior Miss Johnson she should be able to attest the fact that I asked for this very same thing she as in her position Lexi Johnson does not have access to that data and she told me that and I would have to come back when Natalie was back in the office so so I have not tried to pull the wool over anybody's eyes I have asked for this information multiple times I have tried come in I've have tried to make arrangements when Natalie is in the office and that and that ended up happening yesterday so I'm not trying to pull the wool over anybody's eyes but my concern is is that overtime is being paid illegitimately to an employee within the city with contrary to the city's policy contrary contrary to Fair Labor and standard standards act and contrary to the state statute which are policy is modeled after then that we're doing this knowingly that we want to do this and so you want to keep it in your own head uh and tell instead of telling us hey we got to work together we got a problem here potentially Mr Mayor council's next let's settle down this does not need to get escalated yeah council member rainville go ahead so Mr Mayor I believe we are now into um a very serous situation that our attorney would say we are making accusations against an employee and this should not be done in public I would say that there should be no more discussion of accusations of people doing something that a council member feels is improper [Music] no I concur with your assessment we are going to stop the discussion on this um and we're going to bring Mr rupe and bring him and get him involved in this uh we'll stop the discussion at this point this RCA will be tabled so lots of good points of discussion lots of things that I wish wouldn't have come out in this direction okay moving on to the next one um discussion approval and the resolution of the assessment cost to the property owner uh this deals with uh the driving um here's my proposal on this as I would like to propose at myself and the City attorney discuss alternate measures and propose a solution back to the city council uh on our first meeting in April which I think is April 8th I would like to do a motion to that so you guys understand what I'm going to do and I'm going to work with the The Driven Mr rupe and come back with a resolution that I think meets the intent of the city Mr Mayor I would say second anybody support that okay so if that's my motion that that's my second Mr Mayor counc I'm wondering if you'd be willing to amend your motion to include a council member if they're if they're interested in participating I actually do not want a council member I want to go into this I don't need any additional support from this and I believe um I um with myself and Mr rupy we can do just fine so I would like to make the motion that I just like I said for myself and the City attorney I've got a second any other discussion points before we okay Mr Mayor ccor just to clarify and this is part of being just being new you all know but um so you're proposing coming up with an alternative solution with the city attorney bringing it back to the council for us to review and then vote on correct that considers all the drens the city uh and the best interests of our community that that's my okay so we got a second any other discussion all right i' would like to do roll call vote counc member Glazer your first i rainville i iil m Brian hi M swon hi I'm also so on all right so we'll bring it back to April 8th um for further conversation and then the last one um which is 6D um the Personnel policy which has been proposed is 50 some pages um I know it's been out a few days without uh Mark being here tonight um there's six particular pieces in there that uh he wanted the council's input on what I would ask you is to review them I'm not going to bring them up tonight because is not here um and then we will come back and discuss them at our NE when is our next city council meeting that April 8 April 8th and he will be here for that one that's the expectation okay April 8 he will be here any other discussion points on that particular one okay so now let's go on to 6 e which is Council rainville well we would have to move to to postpone this to the April meeting so I move to to the April meeting okay so is that a motion that you're making yes yes all right is there a second to postpone that I'm sorry what what are we postp on the same 160 a motion to Pro postpone until the April 8 until we have the attorney here for the personel F yeah and I think I think it was stipulated in the RCA that it was given to us just for discussion so that we could come back to a to our meeting on April 11th with our questions it it was but it made it on the agenda so that's why I got a motion to postpone go ahead Council M BR is there something I missing I would I would agree with council member Blazer if it wasn't wasn't intended to bring up the the request for Council action is to bring questions to the April 11th meeting there was no action to be taken tonight anyway okay so nothing needs to be done and it's April 8th that is my April did I say the wrong date no I did okay so the next one coming down uh to six was new business was ratified the urr wmo for the 2026 budget council member ran will you lead us through that sure just wanted to um go over the water as you know we're a member of the upper real River watershed management organization and we take a look at the the costs that um are are relevant for for operating The Watershed The Watershed is set up is basically a jpa of of six member C and to to do this to do this this task um you can see several of our projects like over on The Rum River um Lake George and we're we're looking into some of the um Brooks going through now then for potential project but if we we so um we take the budget we divide it out and uh looking at the budget for 2026 we are um proposing that um now then would be contributing um $1,933 21 to our $56,500 th000 so instead of increasing the budget by $50,000 in that year we decided we had some leftover savings so so we're putting putting aside that towards the 50,000 and um in this year for 26 we added about 10,000 that we can put to that so that's basically um where the Watershed um is coming down from a budget perspective and included in the packet was a mini report to the cities about what projects would put together um including uh stabilizing The Rum River um Riverbank and uh doing some classes with St Francis High School among other things so with that I would make a motion to ratify the the budget for 2026 and now portion of $1,933 21 and that's how it's divided out amongst the eight did they do that break down by population Square acreage there's a formula based on um and it's in the jpa that we approved last year if I need if we need to go I just your explation it's based on population and um property values and there's this magical formula that divides it all up perfect so the resolution they're requesting $1,936 for 2026 from the city of n the nin's share of the the uh operating expenses everything else made sense in the report with the exception of I didn't know how to how they broke it down and I couldn't figure that out by looking okay I would second your motion Round Table vote starting with uh council member rainville I round table I'm sorry roll call vote council member Brian hi counc member Swanson hi council member Glazer I and I'm also an i motion carries we'll edit the budget for 2026 next one coming down uh this is dust control all right who wants to start talking on dust control uh what I can tell you um I gotta get resolution anybody got up in front thank you okay so this is a resolution for approving a quote from northern salt in the amount of 50,000 $560 to purchase and apply calcium chloride to nine Road segments of classified roadway in now then biggest portion of this is uh we know that we're working on a budget uh that was approved in 2024 for 2025 the city's transportation system is composed of 60 I thought it was 61 miles of roadway of which 31 or it's actually more than that 31 miles are dirt roads there's no surprise that class five roadways require regular shaping additional class five and calcium chloride calcium chloride to minimize dust attaching the information is two quotes we got one from northern salt for $505 and another one from looks like virotech for $69,700 both both of them assume calcium chloride concentrate of 38% sprayed AT3 gallons a square yard over the 9M segment in the northern salts bid this amount would be 31,600 gallons of slurry and in the enviral tech Bo it would be 42,500 the actual cost will be based on the gallon spray uh please note that only 10 miles of streets are treated this year rather than the the 12 miles due to the cost constraint this may cost some concern so we do have a list of uh streets the ones that are I'll just read this the list off that would be covered with calcium chloride this is the current proposal it's zeolite 223rd Hillside Trail Zion B birdie Valley Basalt West Ford Brook 205 and Perot I don't know how to pronounce that one anybody either parad or par per parid okay little friend twist in there okay M Comm coun or uh M Johnson go ahead um I would like to make a clarification on here it says that last year we did 20 miles and that is um in that is not correct was it 12 it is actually we we contracted for 10 last year and we were able to do maybe sometimes 11 maybe 12 because they always had a little bit extra in their tanks um that is why Joe had the extra roads on it he just texted me and said no no no it isn't right we have 20 M 25 miles of dirt roads we can calcium chloride about 10 we contracted for 10 before and they always gave us a little extra the cost has gone up we're intending to try to get to the 10 miles um if there's a little bit extra they might do another road if there isn't this is all we got so he just wanted me to make sure that you guys understood that that the way that this was written was not quite correct that it is 25 miles of dirt road is what we have we will calcium chloride 10 at the most this year unless there's extra in the tank so I think it's a great discussion point in one um there's probably going to be some residents that are not happy with this if they live on some of the other roads and there's another seven of them I didn't list off that are not count uh part of the current proposal so that's uh what we have do you have some you want to talk more about this one well and you know my question is you know how how did how was it determined which roads were going to be treated and which roads weren't and I assume it has something to do with traffic but we don't have any sophisticated equipment that actually counts traffic does traffic counts correct we do not have the count the traffic counts that is not something or a piece of equipment that this city has uh Joe chooses the roads based upon the need of the grading and the complaints of dust the population on the street and the traffic that goes up and down it which you can tell by how much grading it needs so he is the one who chooses the worst ones to get the calcium chloride so and and and based on so for instance the the low bid is Northern salt $505 last year we paid 46413 43 what is the volume of chloride this year compared to last year do you know what that Joe had told me it was the same amount as last year but I can verify I'm with while you guys are talking Mr um just followup question to you Natalie um you said it depends on the whether the roads need grading so the roads that need grading is that what gets the chloride or is it offet the ones that need the most grading because it has the highest level of track traffic if you do the calcium chloride it makes a harder a harder layer and the goal with the calcium chloride is not only just the dust but it is also to um Harden it so hopefully it doesn't need as much grading unfortunately if you have a lot of traffic going fast and if you have a lot of school buses and garbage uh G or trash when trucks going through um it creates those bump bump bumps quite a bit more and um unfortunately if it rains a lot it also kind of washes away and we have to grade and as soon as you grade that $50,000 is in the ditch with the side of the road well what is the order then so will they grade these roads and then put down the calcium flid what they do is they watch the weather they wait for it to rain they go grade it and then they have the calcium chloride come out so it should be smooth when the calcium chloride is placed if all the stars align and the roads that didn't make it onto the approved list this year are they're still going to get graded right corre oh yeah everything will still get graded and the ones that does that do get the calcium chloride if it's a a a drier summer and people are being respectful of the roads and not you know making them so bumpy and such um they won't grade those right away is there uh he says um he just responded back yes we are getting the same amount of calcium chloride in volume what is the lifespan of the calcium chloride for its Effectiveness on the roads you know five to six months five to six months I did a little bit of reading up on it just because I had the same questions uh one of the things and I really like not to cut you off and I'll come back to you but one of the things that came up council member GL brought up is how is it determined and I have the same exact question and I want to bring that up too so what we don't have is we don't have any data sating we we have this much traffic so I this what I'd like to propose we're not going to be able to fix it for 2025 but for 2026 I would like to do some traffic whether it's pull the black thing across and find out so we're make sure we're targeting the right roads and instead of maybe having one application maybe some of them need two applications but we can budget budget it appropriately but we need to find out how much because I I don't I don't know which roads have the most traffic I'm gonna tell you Mr I would like to make a datab based decision on this and may Council mayor rainville um I will just say in my history with the city and blaz who's been here 30 plus years he knows these cities the streets in and out and he knows which ones need the extra attention of the calcium chloride I'm sure he would like to put it on every inch of our gravel roads but we don't budget for that we first started when I first started on the council I wanted to say our budget for calcium was about $30,000 um calcium has gone up every year same as any other product and when it goes up and Council doesn't budget more then we have to do less I believe Joe makes a good decision on which roads need to be done and he makes sure that it gets done make sure all right thank you councilor you had some more uh Council M um yeah I was uh well I first I would actually like to just uh agree with council member rainville I mean I I don't know Joe personally but I I hear he's been around and he knows the city and so I would defer to his expertise and I I wouldn't be opposed to doing some sort of traffic study but as long as it's you know not a super high cost if it is a high cost I think we'd be better off spending that extra money on but um weot back back to my follow-up question um and this is just me being new I guess but is there any alternative to calcium chloride there is and we did try it and we did do it and it worked a lot better but it's much more expensive yeah Mr there are lots of different Alternatives but yes some work some don't some involve um taking the assalt millings and and combin it back into the into the gravel to to firm up that that road um there's you know know some involve plastic um little plastic pellets instead there's all sorts of different options um and I know like every year yeah we if if something comes up we try them but yeah some some are more work much better but they don't cost much some cost a lot more but they worked miserably I mean we've usually had a test Road I think that was was that two years ago we tried a different road so we haven't done anything tried anything I mean I know Joe said let's try this new thing on this one little segment and see how it works um I also know when we were um evaluating um doing the road Study last year not just for the As for the asphalt roads but for the gravel ones as well um there was information in that brocher about other options so and so yeah there's other things that to theoretically look into I don't know if Joel has looked into any other possible ideas for this year for things to try but then it you know yeah it's a matter of what have the have the roads that we laid out and then see how things go the other option that I that was actually talked about in the past and I have no idea if this would work or not um would be as if um I know other communities literally say hey if you guys watch your road calcium chloride here's how much it would be for your road and to figure out how how you want to pay for it so I don't know if we want to decide to go down that road or not so well obviously and I had a thought along those lines and I don't know if there's a mechanism to do this that wouldn't just directly pass the cost off onto our residents but you know I'm hearing that the the worst roads are are that way because of the garbage trucks school buses is there any way to I don't know charge the garbage companies for their usage of those roads Mr mayor council Mia go ahead one of the things that um especially in more urban areas that cities will do is they will e some have their own uh refu haulers others will contract with one specific hauler for one specific geographical area in order to reduce the traffic one of the challenges that that not only now then faces um but everybody faces is so many of us I mean raise your hand if you don't get something to deliver to your house by Amazon or some other company so the amount of traffic that's hitting our roads every day every week every month and year has dramatically increased because of because of the amount of uh uh home delivery track I love your thought if we could consolidate I just haven't figured out a good way to do it Mr one point you know um council member Brian talked about you know um do we get to the point where we propose to property owners that they pay for it well one discussion something to add to that discussion is the fact that our residents who live on paved roads that that aren't County Roads that are City roads already sharing the cost of that maintenance whenever those roads have to be um resurfaced and maintained so is it some is it something that's fair that it's that it's a a shared um cost for for road maintenance is that 32 yeah similar to that you know and and the city is paying half of that through um our resident taxes and the resident on that street is paying um a uh an equal share an equal share for the maintenance that's being done that Mr Mayor uh Mr Mayor go ahead go ahead Mary um to council member Glazer UMC R go ahead the people that live on asphalt roads people when a road is completely redone and is given a 20-year life cycle yes that part of that is assessed to them when the city goes out and does crack sealing pothole filling any of that which is just routine maintenance that's just in the tax Spas no different than the cost of doing the chloride chloride chloride you can't compare a road reconstruction to calcium chloride or crack sealing and [Music] and okay thank you for your input it just to bring some perspective to that I I agree but there might be something from a maintenance perspective that it might be really important to Residents and this is kind of tying into that but maybe it's at a lower level maybe it's a a $100 a year for a resident that says hey calcium chloride is important it could be something like that maybe there's a hybrid approach councilman rainville um I know the answer to this but we need to put calcium chloride down and it's coming at us like a freight train so it is Mr Mayor okay so I'm getting some answers uh Joe is watching and texting me as I go here um because he knew you were going to be discussing this so um for the length of how long it lasts it depends upon the weather and the speed the zeolite and buite get the most traffic in our city and I can attest to that because those are the ones we get the most oh you weren't there this summer um that's this is the one we get the most if you look at the road complaint um log that we have varite is and Zite are one of the very very top um in order to go ahead Zite 223rd is that what that is I don't see Zite on here Zite is the top what was the other one Zite is the top one what was the other one 223rd must be very light then very light what is it thank you and bu [Music] [Music] light I just don't see very light on this list um it's kind of like the Z the zeolite 223rd he's saying it's kind of all the loop is it inclusive of that Loop yeah um and he says that the in order for it to last as long as you were saying Mr Mayor five six months we have to have clay that holds the road together and our roads are not clay they are sand and if you can bring in some clay to mix in with the sand with the calcium chloride they will last a lot longer but it's always been our budget holding us back um he responded about the garbage trucks he's brought it up to council multiple times is we could divide the city into quarters and give each one of the companies that's around doing trash one area or have them bid it as council member Glazer had said um over all the people are paying for cck ceiling and black top repair the dirt roads are cheaper over 30 years than a black top and he just responded again zeolite turns into 223 Mr mayor council M sson go ahead another question um I I assume so the company we hired did they put down the calcium chloride and is it possible that we could just buy our own sprayer so we could have Joe do it would that save us any money in the long term because I don't see us losing our dirt roads in the near future we're not going to pave over this whole city would it be cost effective to get our own sprayer and how much of the cost that we are paying here proposing paying is labor and the spraying versus the actual material that I don't know but if Council directs I would be happy to have Joe look into it and get a cost on that yeah because they don't a cost in here per and I don't know if it's done in the past Mary do you know here C rville go ahead please so in order for us to put our own calcium chloride down we would have to have a vehicle dedicated to that um because you're going to have a holding tank for the product and then a sprayer we don't have a existing piece of equipment that has that ability so you'd have to buy a whole piece of equipment and I don't know what if that's $200,000 I don't know what a vehicle would be to do that so in order to contract it is the better deal deal for us and yeah I think as we discussed the 2026 budget we can look at Alternatives um as far as garbage look at at the City of Anoka they just tried to change the garbage hauling there and cities will tell you over and over and over again when they do surveys of their residents the thing they like the most is they get to decide who picks up their garbage and for you to try to man that is not an easy task I think somebody is suing an Anoka last I saw um and I don't even know what happened with the final vote on it but if you read any of the Articles the letters to the editor the Facebook posts people were not happy with the city in NOA trying to mandate who you are going to have pick up your garbage so that's much easier said than done great idea Brian go ahead we have always as far yeah it is a good idea but we've we' um because it comes up every year when we talk about assessments and and during the presentation for the roads usually it gets mentioned that you know the two biggest the two biggest heaviest vehicles that do the most damage to the roads are your garbage trucks and your school buses you can't really do much with school buses but you can actually talk to your neighbors and go hey let's all go let's all use company X for our garbage so that there's only one truck coming down every week um you know that's one way to cut maybe on a Grassroots effort trying to go that right that comes out just from freed of a choice and then saying hey I can do a cost cutting measure by going to this trash company TR doesn't want to go there at all I want nothing to do with that and yes we can look at for next year use maybe looking at using the zipper adding in clay and rebuilding up that base and and all comes down of funny yeah so could you at least look into the the truck trailer see if there's a cost measure that it makes sense but doesn't cost justifi we won't pursue it but go ahead just another followup idea I I get Mary's or council member rainer's point about the if you got to buy a dedicated truck for a couple hundred thousand it might not be feasible but I'm wondering does it have to be dedicated just to that I know you know these days you can use Liquid for ice control I mean would it be feasible to also use that as you know some sort of ice sprayer could that save us money versus a salt spreader maybe that could factor into the you know the economics of that and looking at whether it pays off yeah if I can get a full Council Direction on this motion I will absolutely direct Joe to do that please would anybody else support her and tell me exactly what you like him to look into I want to make sure that I get it correctly R go ahead yeah I I would I would move um the council approves uh Miss Johnson to direct public work supervisor Joe glaz to provide us an estimate of a vehic the cost of a vehicle that would be used for calcium chloride placement on the chlide and if there was the ability to use that for something else what would that something else be and is the purchase of calcium as an individuality more expensive or less expensive than what they charge us for the product when they drop it for us when they drop this says here it's a160 a gallon but that I'm assuming is including the application fee of appying it yes and buying it in both Mr Mayor I I don't know if I missed it if anybody but um I'm assuming that it's fair to ask for cost benefit analysis and have that that's really what we're looking for yeah because if it doesn't cost justify there's no reason to spend fine but if you say hey it takes a truck and a trailer and here's our general cost we can do some quick math and say yes it would or will and if it doesn't cost justify there's no reason yeah we don't need official cost we need budgetary Concepts to see if we can that's it I wonder is is there an opportunity maybe Mr Mayor we have a motion on the floor oh all right we got a motion thank you um we got a motion for Mary does anybody want to Second it I'll second second All Right Round Table vote I don't even know who I started with we continue the discussion that's okay I just want to make sure we have a motion going so you're correct Mr Mayor I was going to ask if council member rainville wanted to um for clarification are we talking about a specific extra vehicle that would have to be driven or could it literally be a tank that we can load in the back of the truck and hook up a spray or two so we don't have to actually buy an actual tanker so to speak or or something that we could trailer that would work I mean it would would for clarification and or amending your motion I'm just curious as to where you at with that Mr Mayor counc go ahead please council member Brian yeah I'm I would like Joel to tell us what it is that we would need to do it if it's not a separate truck that's fine if we can put a container on the back of one of our trucks or trailers that's fine but he knows what we have what we would need and if he provides that information to us he provides that information reporting yes and then the other thing too is if we're now handling that product if we're now handling this calcium chloride do and I don't I don't know the the the OSHA rules on it but is there additional training our employees need um I don't know if it's Hazmat or whatever but are there other things associated with our employes putting this material down oh good questions any other discussion on this one if not I'd like to move do you have another statement seeking the report by obviously we have to have this ready before the budget is f Che so in the next 30 days or something you can look into it bring back budgetary quotes we can very quickly do the math and say this is not going to cost justify or F and if it makes sense then we can look into it further but we don't need finite quotes we just need hey this vehicle this trailer this poll ites the cost we can figure it out any other I'd like to move forward with this one starting with council member Brian on on a round correction roll call vote the round table I council member swansson I council member Glazer I council member glaz uh rainville I I all right I'm also I motion carries to look into that okay now we need to get back to the calcium chloride uh we have we have RCA for action on this uh we've had a lot of discussion we've proposed the roads we have no data to support traffic is what it sounds like so any other discussion on this before we go to motion this RCA Mr Mayor C Brian question for administrator Johnson didn't we talk about this in the last couple years that there was something about cities pooling together and buying PES and Flor at B uh we did and Joe did check around but there isn't a lot of cities around us that are providing all of that okay so we looked at it and right right now it's not an option it was not last year or the year before is that because we have all the dirt roads in the NOA County we do not I will just tell you that there are a couple of cities around us that that choose to have their residents do it I I can tell you I drive on a couple of dirt roads going where I go and you can tell the five houses that got together and did it and it stays together a lot longer even in the winter time you can tell that it had been done okay was there any other discussion or can we move to a motion to approve uh the RCA on page n um page 19 approving the quote for a northern salt in the amount of $505 for calcium flate don't move say again don't move so move second make the motion to what you just got it but like to Second it I I'll second Mr Mayor counc member Glazer second all right well we might have two seconds then it's okay council member rainbow I'd like you to start with the uh roll call vote please I counc Brian hi counc M senson all C member Glazer I and I'm also an i motion carries anything else for tonight where is our agenda I think May yes go ahead motion to ad motion to we have one more do we have one more item or did we approve the I thought we had one more item forgive me no that's it we've covered them all we moved a couple down