said it had a minute to go yet. So, there's a one minute difference between our clock and the >> Here we go. There we go. >> All right. >> All right. Get started. All right. Call into order the July 7th, 2026 meeting of the Long Lake City Council at 6:30 p.m. All council members are present for acceptting another newcomer who's absent with prior notice. Item two is the pledge of allegiance. Please join me in the pledge of >> allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. >> Okay. Item three is mayor's comments. review and update. Uh first of all, I hope everyone had a great Fourth of July weekend uh in Long Lake or wherever you're at. We did not have any official Fourth of July festivities or 50th birthday in the United States independence events, obviously some in the area. So hopefully folks got out to enjoy some of those events. I know there's a lot of still a lot of activities in town at our parks and Nelson said beach and that type of thing. I hope everybody had a great weekend. Other than that, uh since the last meeting of um news, the sheriff's city minister city's annual conference in Rochester and we both had good takeaways on um training events they have there and networking and learning about what the city do, what the best practices are for all things city related. And they do a good job of breaking up into larger cities and smaller like ours participating in some breakout sessions on that and I've got some other information I'll be sharing along those lines in the coming week with the council and others. So thank you for taking time to attend that city minister and I encourage others to attend that council members to attend that event in the future. Always a great event. So besides that, no major updates as since last week put out an email today about the beach closure at house park. So it's unfortunate but did the same thing. So one their public features bad time of year unfortunately for really warm weather. another issue that wise unfortunately. Okay, with that we'll move on to item four which is to approve this evening agenda. I'll make a motion to approve the agenda. >> I'll second. >> Thank you. A motion and a second. Any further discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I motion carries unanimously. I excuse me. Open correspondence. Open Respondence is an item on the agenda. Mr. Public may address the city council. No formal action is taken by the city council. Comment should be limited to five minutes or less. Open correspondence may also be emailed to city staff by noon on the date of the meeting. Anyone wish to approach open correspondence? I think we have at least one taker. >> I might interject real quick before Mr. Miller takes just about there. Um, >> Lucy Lucy. >> Um, if we can all make sure the mics are a little closer to us this evening, that will help for our remote attendance. And, um, I can already probably might lose a voice or two. So, thanks for nudging them a little bit closer this evening. >> Thank you. >> All right. >> Any chance the projector is going to come back? I >> I feel like I'm going to be here a lot. I sure like that. It it can come up on occasion, but uh it's kind of hard to do with this particular format. >> I don't need it tonight. Honorable mayor, me uh members of the council, city staff, Ryan Miller, 295 Lake View Avenue. I once again wrote a 60page dissertation that I'm decided this afternoon I'm not going to read. I'm going to add libid some things about history and then I have handouts for all of you. Uh reading material that I hope you take seriously and give a good read to. Uh I just want to go back in history and talk about city of Long Lake. Uh starting with Liz Olston's house and maybe four buildings that are sort of historic down there. Those buildings are still here today. Uh the Pioneer Museum is still here. This is 1907. Um, it used to be a school. People like Reggie Ringer, my neighbor, went to school there. People like, uh, Steve Kelly of Kelly Kelly went to school there. Um, I don't want to move up the street because that's it for history down there by the lake. For history up in our neighborhood, it's Lake View Avenue and it's only couple of houses on Brown Road and it's a couple houses on Watertown Road. Um, let's start with the north end of Lake View Avenue and head south where we have 351 Lake View Avenue, that's the original house there. Uh, the Brandon's in that house. Sorry, I do need my glasses. All the lots along Lake View Avenue had two lots. Uh, that since changed for the most part. Uh, so Gretchen Cashmore is at 303 Lake View Avenue. That's the original home there. She also has a long-standing history of generations of family here in this in this city. Uh, next is me, Brian Miller, 295 Lake View Avenue. Things about my house that are original are the garage used to be a chicken coupe. There's still chicken baskets in there, uh, egg baskets. There's a sitern buried in the backyard and there's a pipe going in through the wall where they used to capture water to get water in the house off the roof. Uh next down is the suaneers at 249 Lake View. Uh their garage used to be a carriage house for drawing carriages. Um and they have like me found numerous artifacts in their homes that are quite fascinating in the 1930s, 1940s, stuff like that. Uh Next down is is uh Lisa Cochran at 235 Lake View Avenue. She uh Dave has the souvenir have both their lots still. Next down is the or the Cochran. And I've shown you this photo before, but this is their home. And we believe that He County property records are incorrect because from the Pioneer Museum, we have Lisa's house and house here from 1914. So, I'm going to put pictures on the back. People are welcome to look at that. Um, so that's it for Long Lake. That's That's all that's left. Everything else is mowed over and paved over and stuff. And um I like to take serious history. I'm not a native Long Laker, but I believe in preserving history. And when it comes to the road, I just want to touch on Oh, I want to get to the Ringers. You go down farther. Now, Reggie's at what, uh 199 Upper Lee. Redfield has lived in that 1952 house since 1954 before Upper Lee existed. That's because his driveway was Upper Lee and it went on to Watertown Road. Now it's become. And as you know, the passenger started here in Long Lake in 1905. Started the fire department in 1915 at the oil, the Ford Motor Company, uh, all that stuff. Um, and what we know from talking with Reggie is Upper Lee went in in 1973. We know that Lake View Avenue is here before that. Lake View Avenue was the first road. Don't give me the gavvel. So anyways, the point is those roads uh that pavement is 60 years old. So when the engineers come along and say that you got to have curb and gutter or it's going to rot the edges, the edges are going to rot away and stuff. That's not what's happened. That has not happened at all in 60 years. And you can read more about that in my handout. Um, what I also want to say about that is the See, Reggie, don't give me the G yet. >> Mhm. >> But a couple of points. Oh, on the 4th of July, we had a torrential rain here. Power went out. I took a drive in my car and I went around. Water was flowing down Central Avenue perfectly down into the ditches when it got to Lake to Lake View Avenue. And the water on Lake View Avenue was flowing in the ditches about half full perfectly and it flowed all the way to each end of Lake View and it went into the city's existing storm drains and disappeared beautifully. There was no problem whatsoever. went down upper lead. The water was flowing down both sides, banking the turn, ending up down in the city storm drain perfectly. Nobody's getting harmed. There's no drainage problems. It works via this place. The road just needs to be replaced. It does not need curbing gutter. And you can read more about it in my handout. Um, and one other thing is well, for now I'll leave it for my handout. So that's some history and you'll find a bit of argument why we don't need curb cutter. But I think that honoring that history. Oh, a big point I have too is people say it's about the money that they don't they're concerned about a curb gutter. is the aesthetics and that's what I mean about history. Let's preserve the history. The ditches work fine. The the whole thing is very charming. Um there's no need to reinvent the wheel. There's no need for the city to spend more money than it needs to. And you can read about that in this hand out. All right. >> Thank you for your time. We'll have a chat GPC. Yeah. Give that to staff and they'll disseminate it as appropriate. >> Thank you, Brian. >> All right. Anyone else for the correspondence? >> No, pastor. But okay, come on up. Yeah, for the moment. That's okay. Just put your name and address, please. >> Hello, my name is Rachel Leewendowski and my daughters and I live at 200 Lake View Avenue. >> Um, I would like to know, yes, why does the power go out? >> Ironically, >> we have been working on that. Ironically, >> working on that. Uh the mayor doesn't actually know this, but I've I obtained permission slips from um well essentially permission emails from a bunch of properties because we are asking Excel Energy um and they won't give us detailed data without property owner permission. They'll only tell us like number of outages. What we're trying to establish is trends and what are your projects to fix those. Um so we did ask the question of Excel Energy. They said we can't give you history without written permission from property owners and uh was a bay realy was our friend because they own a lot of properties scattered throughout town >> and really all over Lakey Grand Orchard good segment that are all experiencing the issue. I got permission from them for all of their properties and submitted that to XL Energy today and said, "Please go ahead and start doing your threeear research and um let us know what you see uh there for artistry and friends and also if you have any pending progress to address those because yes, we're aware it seems to be happening more often." I I'll also add on there. We've noticed a um major increase in overtime for staff because every time the power goes out, we have alarms. >> Yes. >> And we need to address those. And a lot of times we're having staff drive in on the weekends in the middle of the night to have to address the outages. >> Yeah. The city is just as um crucial as it is for our residents. I don't want you to think just because we it doesn't happen during normal business hours that we're not affected. We're actually affected. >> We're upset. >> It's great to hear. >> Yes. Yes. Good timing. >> I have been told that there have been some notices that have been sent out to areas about tree trimming activities and it sounds like you might have gotten one. Yep. And it sounds like they've been pretty busy just outside our borders with a large asand crew. So, we may be seeing that coming into town. Um if we weren't before, this email might enhance that, but we'll see what we find out. >> Excellent. But we have put the put the question to them. >> Wonderful. Thank you for that. And for the record, I would just like to say I support Brian and and his no curb and gutters and we definitely need a new road >> because there's no way they can skateboard down that. And for me, so when she comes right into my garage. Oh yeah. So a little bit of repaving would go a long way for sure. >> And then when you guys do that, I can get my driveway redone. I'll be happy. >> So all right. Thank you very much. >> Yeah. Thanks for speaking for a moment. All you have to do is sign up on our homepage of our website. >> Are any submitted open correspondence? >> Thank you. >> Okay, we'll move on then to item six, consent agenda, items A through G on the consent agenda this evening, including couple of noteworthy items, which is approving a special event permit for the Cornday's parade in August 8th. Mark calendars for that. And then a special event permit for Buckhorn Days um their one day festival on July 25th which is coming up obviously. So mark your calendar as well. And then appointing election judges for the 2026 state primary and general elections. That seems like it's so far away but I guess it's not really >> before we know it. Any questions for and then also and then the resation of public works maintenance worker one in addition to our usual items. Any questions for staff regarding items in the consent agenda? If not, I'll entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda. >> I'll make a motion to approve consent agenda. Second. >> All right. Mot motion and second. Any further discussion? All those in favor? I opposed. Motion carries unanimously. Okay. Item seven, regular business. We begin and only item tonight is 7A, reject bid for the 2026 mandatory lining project contract. All right, Amanda. >> Yeah, thank you. Tonight we have um our engineer Rachel Shu. I I'm probably saying her last name incorrectly. I apologize. Um, she is going to talk to council today about the phase that we had for the 2026 sanitary sewer lining project. Um, and the what our recommendation is based on the bid that we received. Rachel, are you available? >> Yes, I am. Can you hear me? >> Yes, sure can. >> Perfect. Thank you. Um, good evening, council and Mr. Mayor. Um, just providing an update um on the sanitary sewer lining project. We had gone out for bids end of June. Um, unfortunately, we only received one bid and it was significantly higher than our engineers estimate. Um, in response to that, we had followed up with um, some of the planh holders um, as to why they didn't bid and just get some information based off of these results. Um, and the consensus was that other contractors were interested in bidding, but due to staff availability and just timing with other projects going on that had a similar timeline um that they were unable to um submit bids. Um so we are recommending to reject the bids as is and propose um rebidding at a later date um to anticipate receiving more bids and potentially better pricing. >> What is the proposal for the later date when do you think >> so? Does anyone have any questions um at this time? Um Rachel, could you elaborate wh what the timeline would be for the later date? And also to um we have the the bid totaling 1.3 million. Um what was WSB's original anticipation of the cost? Um, so I think you're breaking up a little bit there, but I I guess if I'll repeat the question, you were asking about uh plan for later date at rebidding and then what our engineers estimate was. >> That's correct. >> Okay. Um, so we'll connect with Amanda and Sean on a later date, but we'd still like to get it out this fall. Um, so we'll touch base with city staff on that. Um, so more to come there. And then the engineers estimate was around 800,000. >> You still think that 800,000 is a realistic uh estimate based on what came in from the bid? believe so. We'll take another look at it. Um, but I think just due to the timing of the bidding being later in the construction season, um, contractors already being busy with projects and our timeline of wanting the lining to be completed end of October, um, that that caused their estimate to come in in high. >> Thanks, Rachel. >> Yep. Other questions for Rachel or comments? Okay. It's unfortunate that it's so far over and that was obviously way over what we had anticipated as we went down this path. So hopefully we can uh get some get a much lower bid here to get a better bang for our buck with that with that lining project that we desperately need. All right. Well, if there's no other questions, I'll entertain a motion on this one. >> Make a motion to reject it and do not award the contract for the 2026 ling. >> All right, I'll second that motion and a second. Any further discussion? All those in favor? I opposed. >> Motion carries unanimously. >> Thank you, Rachel. >> Rachel, one more question, Rachel. if you can hear me. U was there a certain um task in their proposal that was way off or was it just all of them were higher than anticipated? Um or was there, you know, any one or two or three areas that they were significantly higher than your estimate? >> Did you catch that, Rachel? >> I I did not. Could you repeat that, please? >> Yeah. So, um, in their estimate, was there any specific line item that was, um, you know, where the increase was was was due to or was it across all of the line items that they were all just higher than you expected? >> Yeah, it seemed there wasn't any specific bid item. It seemed like overall the costs were high. Okay. All right. Thank you, Rachel. With that, we'll move on to other business. Item eight. Council member Feldman. Nothing. Thank you. All right. Council member Dybeck. >> Okay. Um, don't have anything else to add than already did the conference. So, um, yeah, we're calling >> nothing for me. >> Okay, Mr. Chair. >> Yes, I just wanted to quickly thank our public works department. We they worked throughout the weekend over this holiday weekend. We ran into a situation with one of our actually both of our wellhouse pumps. Um, that was identified to us, I believe, on Wednesday. And to ensure safe drinking water, um, our public works director came in through every day throughout the weekend to make sure to do testing and to make sure that pumps were being either running as expected or that he could manually operate. And so I do appreciate him willing to come in over the his holiday weekend and spend it here in Long Lake to make sure our residents >> are there going to be needed or replacement? >> Yes, sir. Um, if you recall on our 2020 on our CIP that was approved for the 2026 budget, I had well one replacement in 2027. Um, I'm anticipating that will be bumped up to 2026. And then the well two was just recently replaced. So, we need to look at that and see what's not what's what the problem was with well two. But we will be working on addressing both. Is >> there a warranty on that? Well, >> I believe I I asked I've asked the public works director to look into that. Um he has I do believe he has a part coming this week and then as I mentioned we are going to be um pushing up the well one replacement pump replacement >> something that caused the two or did one fail and the other one have to work harder or >> he he didn't he didn't identify that. We were we were actually wondering why both were happening at the same time. >> Um there was air ending up in the lines. He can he can give more details, but nevertheless, that will be a repair that will be on on our radar in the next couple months, but as of right now, everything's working wonderfully, and it's because he was a due diligence this weekend and was willing to come in every day. And he was on who's the art on call person this weekend or he kind of >> I think he went above and be doesn't do on call very much anymore at the staff but unfortunately there are no staff qualified for this >> for this level right now. So >> do we not have enough um reserved in our water tower that can like handle a pump shut down for a while or >> I don't understand the process exactly. However, with it going into us being closed on Friday, with having a three-day holiday weekend, I think it was just a little bit more um concern and the amount of water that is used for lawns and such this time of year causes us to deplete quite quickly. So, >> but he would have the details on the the technology and what happened, but I just wanted to show my appreciation work. All right. Thank you for that. >> Nevertheless, just starting to prep for all things elections. We're also um making it working to make a transition from media com for internet service both here and at the public works building which does provide some increased speed and stability. We hope so surveys out today. Work will be ongoing over the next couple weeks because they seem to be in high demand right now. But >> looking forward to getting that done. >> Good step forward. >> Yes, >> we will actually be resulting in fees to both buildings for less than we were paying with our original contract. and Wi-Fi boosters for different areas of the building. >> Nice. >> Excellent. >> Public works will actually have be able to have Wi-Fi out on the shop floor. So, if they're doing something on a laptop and need to carry out or something into the shop floor for some reason, they would be able to do that. You know, if they want to look something up by VAS while they're out there, do that. >> Good. >> But our building already has the fastest internet in the city. good combination. >> Having a little trouble getting media come in to finish some work on their side. >> So, uh they're a little interested in how our experience and our review goes. Uh Tyler and I chatted about that earlier today. They like us have signed a contract with Mediacom. Well, now we're months to month so we can drop when we see. Tyler will probably be left in a little while longer, but uh when his contract comes up, they may also be. Have you heard did they have you heard any updates by the way of seems like Mid Co's construction was pretty um going pretty good, but the part of the city that we live in is probably the last get it. >> You guys did All right. But yeah, didn't hear anything by chance. >> He just said that they are extremely busy as they're continuing to move construction all throughout the lake area. You know, the DP is a big area for them, I think, this year. >> Um, and Bay actually it is. Um, so they're continuing to further their expansion, but they they did have an eastern portion of the city that they needed to wrap this year. Not quite sure if they're complete with that or not yet. >> Okay. Part of the eastern part at least. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Anything else? >> All right. ask all for your council members. >> Amanda, on that example that you gave of Sean coming in um made me think of at my work and I know Sean's a salary employee, but at my work we have you know there's this thing called um can't even remember what it's called but um where you can nominate people who have kind of gone above and beyond for and they have different levels of awards that and then there can be like not like nothing. It's just sort of a recognition like hey and I think they my company call it a raise award or whatever and uh and then there's other one you know that go to small monetary amounts or larger monetary amounts. Um I mean in in this and maybe it's part of the job description that you know you're you're going to be coming in some weekends you know you know when you have to but I was wondering what the appetite would be for maybe having some sort of special recognition. Funny you actually mentioned that because we had an HR committee meeting um about a month or so ago and it was brought up at that meeting to start trying to look at either um something to reward for performance or and I think that would >> yeah it's like when especially when going above and beyond you know and it might just be you know 100 bucks or 250 or you know might or may and maybe it's based on you know what level of above and beyond it was I mean that's I'm just think how we did it in my work, but >> um >> no, I'm always we're definitely starting to look at different ways to start um recognizing our staff and making sure that we notice when they do. I think you're 100% right. Yes, it's something >> I didn't know if >> it's being a government um you know, organization if it has if we're limited on what we do in terms of that. >> I can check on those on those details. >> Great. Thank you. Okay. So, I'm sure our next meeting is going to be Tuesday, July 20 21st. >> That one we can plan will be longer. There will be a work session. There will be more content on the agenda. We can plan for that to be a longer meeting. >> Got it. >> Oh, one go back. Um and I have a fireboard meeting tomorrow morning. >> Um and we're going through the process of of fire chief interviewing and and you know the process of hiring a fire chief you know starting in January 27 and um and not that it's not that we're getting rid of our fire chief. In fact, he is open to applying for the position. But during the negotiations that we had, you know, that was the that was the plan that was laid out that we would keep the long leg fire chief in his position until the end of 26 and then we would sort of hope for um you know a full the next full-time fire chief um which could also be him. Um, but we'll be discussing that process that's being put together. Um, that's mainly what we're going to talk about tomorrow, I think. >> What about the assistant chief? Is it >> the deputy? >> Oh, deputy. >> Yeah, he's been hired. >> Yeah, he's hired and um he's in his position. Um, I mean he could he could put his name in the ad too if he wanted to, but um, so it's just they just wanted to have, you know, we want to have an open >> process for for getting that next um next part. So yeah, I think people have asked questions to me too. It's like, oh, pretty quick turnover like no, this has been the plan from the beginning and he knew this. This is part of the >> I think miscommunication out there, but it's part of the process. Is >> there a rough ETA on when the when the the new chief would be named or I think the interview process is like mid August, right? And then there's I think was it September, October? >> The new chief would be hired um according to JPA by November 1st. They would they would be employees. So the process must be paid to do that >> but not taking the the No, they would work closely if if it happened to not be our current chief. Yeah. Which was hired as an >> current chief is is employed until >> through the end of the year and then the new Yes. And then if there is a new chief hire, they would they would begin employment on November 1st um to overlap and make make it a seam seamless transition. Um but I'd also like to mention one other thing in addition to the board um that I think council needs to be aware of. Um in add on the 21st council meeting here. We will need to approve according in accordance to JPA the budget the 2027 fire budget has to be approved by the end of July. So that we will be working really hard at tomorrow's at the board meeting to review the budget and to present get something to present to our council and then our council we need to re to have it approved by the end of July. So if you when you get the packet from Zette, if you have any questions or concerns, I encourage you to contact me ahead of time so that we don't have to have a special meeting to get the budget approved. That will be presented to council on July 21st if everything tomorrow goes well. >> Great. >> Good luck. >> Yeah. All right. All right. Any any other Go back. Go back. All right. So, next meeting July 21st. Sounds like a busy one. All right. If there's no objection, I'll adjourn the meeting by general consent. Hearing none, meeting at 7:06 p.m. >> It seems kind of quick, right? >> The budget >> looking at Oh no.