[Music] good evening everyone tonight is Wednesday July 24th 2024 it's 6:01 p.m. and I'd like to call to order the city of Columbus city council meeting for tonight our first order of business will be the Pledge of Allegiance please join us if you care to I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America to The Republic Justice for All I would like to uh make a motion to approve the agenda for the 20 July 24th 2024 city council meeting that's tonight with the addition of the supplemental Bill list to item b.2 of the consent agenda and item 7.b resolution 20 24-5 is there a second this is Su second any questions or discussion if not I'll call for the vote Ron I SU I Janet I Rob I and Jesse [Music] I uh onto letter B number one uh so this is the consent agenda the June 26 2024 city council meeting minutes approval approval of bill payments as attached in the July 24th 2024 payment summary Pages 1- 4 and the supplemental Bill list I'll make the motion again to approve the consent agenda as presented in item b.2 of the July 24th 2024 city council packet is there a second so this is Janet I'll second that um with the addition that there's just some minor typographical errors um on the minutes to be corrected nothing that changes the context thank you so we have a motion in a second I'll call for the vote gr I sue I janed I grai and Jesse I on to letter C public open forum is there anyone iners or online who would like to speak at public open Forum hi my name is Shannon hoisel and I would like to if uh if I can certainly thank you for joining us tonight Shannon thank you for having me what would you like to talk about the reason um that I am joining you this evening I am representing the Minnesota lady slippers uh pheasants forever chapter uh and we are doing um a partnership with Running Aces and um a fundraiser evening next Thursday and we're doing a raffle that we're looking to do and we have confirmed with uh the Minnesota gambling State um uh control board that we do not need a license since the pricing is under $1,500 um but they told us that we needed to Circle back with you guys for some approvals yes that's correct that's correct Shannon we did get your information this afternoon that will be presented in the resolution we added to the agenda 202 24-5 and will be presented for approval and explanation at the latter part of the meeting so uh I do have your background information it is here and I will present it at that time wonderful do you need anything else from me not unless city council has any questions that they would like to ask of the raffle the raffle supports a tune program which is a camp stuff for kids and uh they did this last year too at Running Aces so it's something they've done before here it seems to be for a very good purpose yeah any questions yes habitat and and youth events and what we can do if um if the resolution is approved we can have that to you by tomorrow and everything can be taken care of because it'll have to be submitted and everything done by August the 1st okay that sounds good thank you thank you thank you thank you for joining us all right item number two audit report Pages five and six in our packet we've got J mikon tonight Cheryl and Jack you're going to lead the discussion yes need to share the screen there we go perfect so Jim Ikon is here from mmkr and he's going to be reviewing the audit with us thank you mayor members of council Administration my name is Jim Mike then I'm with mmkr CPA here this evening will you pull your makeup about an inch from your lips please how's that closer heard the audience at home they want to hear me is that what's going on there you go it's more for us wants to hear you uh um mayor members Council thanks for having me this evening um my name is j Mike and I'm with mmkr CPAs I'm here this evening to provide a uh presentation on the audit results for the year end of December 31st 2020 three I believe there's a PowerPoint is you running that Cheryl all right great um um the the purpose for me being here is to provide or receive acceptance of the audit reports for the year ended I believe the uh audit reports were provided to you in the in the packet I saw some paper reports in front of you as well um those financial statements that you're seeing there are required to be uh prepared annually by the city uh based on state statute um you are required to then have that financial statement audited by a independent certified public accountant which is the role that I provide for the city um we completed the audit uh um just um recently and we have submitted the the reports to the office of the state auditor um and tonight we're here to receive acceptance of that particular those particular reports uh we also prepare What's called the management report and that management report is Prov provided to you um as a format in a format that is easy to understand and you don't necessarily have to go through the full report to understand the results of the audit um so I'm going to go through some of the highlights in that particular report and and also covered on on the PowerPoint uh that Cheryl is running over here uh so first and foremost um um the audit was uh uh completed um you know we were here in you know I think February March we came um um we completed some of the aspects um towards the end of May into June after uh um some of the accounting service providers completed their information and and submitted the report um just recently um you'll see in the in our PowerPoint in the report that uh the audit opinions and and findings or maybe better said lack of findings are are summarized in four pullet points on that particular document um sure you can probably go oh you're on the right page one I'm sorry you're good um first and foremost I was able to issue um where are described unmodified opinions on that financial statement um the unmodified opinions were the opinions you were looking for that's a clean opinion a positive opinion in the audit results um we are required as part of this audit to uh audit your internal controls over uh Financial related activities um best examples of those include cash receipts cash dispersements payroll those those internal control structures specific to financial reporting we go into our audits uh of a city of your size understanding that you don't have what we describe as perfect segregation of Duties within those responsibilities um I describe that particular item as a a reportable condition I don't really like to call it a finding you might read some of the words in the report and see that that's a finding but in my opinion that's a reportable item I'm reporting to you that I audited your city under with the understanding that you don't have segregation of Duties so we look for when I do our testing of internal controls other controls other compensating controls that would overcome those limitations and and we're certainly finding those here um best examples of some of those are secondary reviews of Bank reconcil iations um check registers being provided to city council those are good examples of compensating controls they don't overcome the limitation but they certainly help to alleviate any concerns in the control structure so we didn't ultimately issue any findings um in that area other than noting the segregation of Duties uh we also audit your compliance with um government auditing standards um we issued an opinion in that was a clean opinion as well best example of things that pertain in that particular space include uh any sort of Grant compliance that you have um grants come with certain requirements and compliance areas that you have to comply with and as an auditor were required to um audit those items and and we did not have any concerns or findings in that area uh lastly we are issuing an opinion on your compliance with Minnesota specific laws and regulations uh the office of the state auditor is issues a list of every law that we're required to audit we don't audit every law that might pertain to the city just the ones on their list and then uh in that particular opinion again we didn't issue any findings so uh uh in the compliance part of this audit we don't have any findings to report a perfect scorecard to be honest uh so that's exceptional um this is I think well I know it is my second year of doing this and and that's excellent given given it's really just year two it takes generally a little bit longer than that as when I start getting into new audits um so this is a a very but positive result um you know in the audit results so sure if you want to go there we go so the second part of the audit uh really is the financial results uh for the year uh my presentation in the management report shows starts with um an overview of of some of the um governmental funds and and how they were generating revenues for the city and we like to start with property values and that particular uh graph you see on the screen is a summary of the last five years six years actually of Market values uh Market values in and around the city have have increased uh significantly over the last several years in in 2023 your Market values increased about 11% which is a little bit above the uh the average we're seeing um but pretty close to what we're seeing in terms of increases in Market values so the next graph I believe there we go uh shows the impact of that increase um this particular um graph shows the average rates that are used um by the county if you will to uh generate property taxes so you can see the city's average tax rate um used to generate revenues tax revenues went down um to 45.8 compared to where it used to be 48 um what that means is um your Market values are increasing lowering the average rate to get to the same volume of Revenue which is a good thing uh ultimately for the residents of the city and you can see overall that's impacting other taing jurisdictions as well the school district and this County um really showing good trend lines in that particular graph the next graph I believe yes uh shows um how this is impacting the city's um revenues on a per capita basis so this particular graph shows the revenues of the city uh for all governmental funds it excludes Water and Sewer funds um on a per capita basis and it does compare that to Statewide data uh one caveat here is the data the comparable data is 2020 1 which as the time of at the time of this published document was the most recent data available the state auds office has issued new data for 2022 recently so there are other more more more newer information um just so you're aware but what's important really is when you look at that particular graph the city's generating $1,655 per resident of the city and that compares to 1,400 1300 comparable uh cities Statewide in 2021 um you can see the very top line um does stand out uh the city did increase its property tax levy um and it did generate additional revenues to the city even though the average tax rate went down um so really supporting that market V increase uh is supported by additional revenues other items stand out to me in that particular graph is that is in the intergovernmental Revenue line uh you can see that it increased to $231 per resident um there were some additional federal dollars that came to the city that were spent on a Broadband project uh this past year which is shown there you also received some additional state aid in the form of Public Safety Aid that came from the legislature 2023 I believe um that was additional revenues to the city going to the next graph we also show the same data on the expenditure side of the equation um this graph is comparing the expenditures um uh from a current basis and a capital basis as well as Debt Service uh you can see the city spent $1,438 per resident in 2023 the year that I audited um couple items that stand up there you can see then the current basis it went to from $77 last year to $783 um um you know that's most of that or some of that was in the area of tax increments um there were some flow through of tax increment dollars that were um I call it held back but they were um vetted and cleared this past year which is increasing those particular averages um that you might see in that particular graph you also see that the capital line was higher than last year that can EB and flow depending on the city's project spending and then lastly you can see debt Services actually going down as as you pay down your debts the standard schedules um are are decreasing in terms of Debt Service payments uh it is important really when you look at that particular graph to compare it to averages that service management and the part of the council is important so you're spending about $300 per resident averages depending on the size of a city go anywhere from $300 to $200 per resident so you're right in the norm I would say for a city uh of your size so I think the next graph shows uh um the overall General excuse me governmental funds change in fund balance fund balance is the equity position at the end of the year for each individual fund of the city um one item of note there was a change in fund structure this past year um that um kind of the best way to put it is broke out the road maintenance fund out of the general fund and and made it a separate reportable fund versus being incorporated into the general fund uh all all of these documents you see here both the financial report and the management report we separated it out so that the comparable information ultimately shows it as if it was always that way um so you can see in that particular graph fund balances went down about 2.6 million um the item that stands out is a refunding bond payment the city refunded a bond um I don't remember exactly the date but the payment of that Bond happened in 2023 and you can really see that on that presentation it's a declining the the overall fund by in that particular fund by almost 3.6 million nothing concerning there it was just a good transaction for the city it's just happening stands out on that graph uh the general fund you can see increased its fund balance from 4.9 million to 5.2 million increasing overall fund balance by almost 300,000 um certainly a positive uh Trend in in general fund balance as shown on that graph and we have some other graphs I think the next one I believe there we go uh shows some trend lines in general funds financial position specifically um this particular graph shows the fund balance um went from 4.9 to 5.2 um the the budget projected a slight decline in fund balance so um having an increase in fund balance of almost 300,000 was certainly a positive as mentioned earlier um the city does uh have a fund balance policy that states that the total general fund balance um were to is to be maintained at a minimum of 50% of operating budgets um that's pretty standard um language that you see at a city you need cash to operate you're only getting paid property taxes ultimately twice a year so a minimum 50% is pretty standard uh the office of the state auditor certainly recommends that in their language um so at the end of the year when you you can you do the math on the the city's fund balance as a percentage of operations you're currently at 137% so you're certainly meeting that minimum um and actually have uh significantly more than that minimum standard uh what that means to the council is you're aware that you have uh additional fund balance um it can be used in a variety of ways it can be stayed there for future uses there's no requirements to do anything with that um other than as a council and administration you should be aware of where you stand at the end of it each year so I believe we do provide some additional graphical presentations here we show some uh general fund Revenue information for the last year you can really see on that graph the change in property tax revenues uh for 2023 increasing to 2.7 million compared to almost 2 million in the previous 2 years you can also see the intergovernmental Revenue that I previously mentioned stands out on that particular graph um very minimal amounts in the previous two years and and really increasing on that particular graph um um really stands out the next one uh graph shows expenditures here's again a three-year presentation of general fund expenditures um this particular graph really again shows that capital outlay of the Broadband project stands out when you look at the purple graph at the very right hand side you can see the increase in capital which is in this case um you know a one-time cost that we'll go back to normal in the future I would anticipate so we also in our report go over the Enterprise funds in this case it's the water and the sewer funds this graph shows the change in financial position in this case it's Equity um or or net position um showing an increase of about 100,000 in in fund balance which is certainly a positive trend uh there were some increases in revenues in these funds U this past few years if you look at the next graph Cheryl thank you uh this particular graph shows the water fund 5-year presentation uh of showing revenues expenditures um and two what I would call net income or operating income lines one line the green line is before depreciation excuse me after depreciation and the red line is before depreciation why is there two lines well um depreciation is a non-cash item you're really depreciating something you already paid for so the red line is really representative of cash flow are you cash flowing are you generating enough cash to pay your current expenditures and certainly that red line shows that to be the case um but the green line shows that you're not covering depreciation so uh ultimately when there's future Capital needs of the city you'll have to find other means to pay for those Capital related items um which is clearly shown on that particular graph uh is there a concern on the part of an auditor on that no that's a philosophical financing uh Arrangement or or Trend that you're using which is very common for cities like yourself the sewer fund is very similar here you're seeing um uh the revenues five years of revenues and expenses in this fund again both improving both the water and sewer fund did actually see increases in revenues from consumption uh that's pretty much very similar um related to weather um most cities had increase in consumption s just in 2023 related to weather for that year but overall again you can see here the red line is a positive cash flow um and the green line is really um not funding depreciation as noted earlier I think that's the last presentation or last graph so I will summarize um the overall audit results were very positive you you we issued a clean opinion on your financial statements no findings to report which is exceptional um the general fund financial position is certainly very healthy uh setting money aside not only from um um the minimum expectations but for future needs of the city uh increasing its overall fund balance both at the general fund and and all the other funds as well as um uh the uh o Enterprise funds um lastly we also reflect on um the budget of the city was certainly you met expectations there as well as Auditors we look for compliance in that area as well um the budgeted expectations or the budget met expectations which is important as a council you want to see that um audit results mimic what we passed um so all in all um I want to lastly say that um the city is very dedicated to the audit process um um I I work in many many cities and have over 100 clients and it it doesn't always look and feel like it is here at the city um the city staff even this year with um really a change in very Topline staff um we're very dedicated in making sure that this audit got done and complete and it doesn't always look like that when you have significant turnover so I give credit to the staff to have for the the positive results specifically to the to the audit so with that I'll turn it over to you for any questions that you have for me anybody with any specific questions I just have one so this is Janet um when you talked about the city's fund balance policy and in our current uh percent over budget um as compared to kind of what the the I don't know recommended is I don't remember seeing a number that large last year or even in any year so so how did that become so much is I mean really did that all happen in one year or were there other reasons that all of a sudden it showed up in this audit are you are you referencing the 137% that I'm talking about well first first moment I have to look back but um remember there was a change in fund structure right so you took some of your expenditures out of the general fund and moved them to a to a capital fund which lowered the denominator if you will so you have a lower denominator uh your fund balance actually went up um by almost 300,000 so both of the numbers are moving you know significantly U which is the main reason for that um the number being as high as it was I'd have to look back I I didn't really look too closely but I'm curious as to what the number was last year now that you say that yeah I don't I right off the top of my head I thought we were rate around or a little bit more than sort of what that recommended was I don't recall us being almost three times it m I think you're right your your intuition is pretty accurate there anything else anyone uh yeah thanks mayor uh as it relates to you had you had alluded to 137% funded is that based off months of bills that we need to pay is that like outgoing funds were were 137% funded that way yeah that's a good question the the 137 is um your fund balance your equities position as a percentage of total expenditures for the year okay annual expenditures um so that's really of operations you you you could go you could go a whole year plus another 30% of another year and not and still have cash to or Equity to pay all your bills for for a whole entire period okay um another way to look at it is you're you need 50% at a minimum because you you're not getting paid by the county you know for a whole six-month period so you you almost have you know two and a half times um dollars in equity to cover annual operations and that's to accommodate say no money was coming in we'd be able to pay the bills for that long right exactly thank you so so typically what you see when you get to that level um action you know councils look at that fund balance if you will and say well now what and they offer that to council or excuse me to Administration and say well what what do we have what projects do we have that we might be able to utilize those for or maybe we want to set that aside for future Debt Service needs maybe we want to set it aside for Capital related items maybe we want to use it in the Enterprise funds for water sewer projects I mean there's all kinds of items that you can use it for you're not required to use it at all to be honest um but that's generally the discussion that goes on after an audit like this is well now what thank you m anyone else no well thank you for a good report and let's take a minute thank you Cheryl thank you Jack thank you to both of you aren't we earlier than we were last year yes so next year we might be done by March 1st so look at her face go for next year her her car her car was here late a lot of nights I noticed I don't get home early so oh as well as I could if I could just a minute on that we did have a nice ex excellent actually meeting with Jim and and Jack and Cheryl actually going into next year's audit and how we can get that done faster and and um we actually laid out plans I did and help with Cheryl's approval we kind of let planned out next year as well so we are agreeing with you on that that this can be done earlier and continue to make it earlier and to Echo Jim's statements and your compliments to the staff Cheryl was the driver of this she did an outstanding job and she deserves all the credit for the budget for for the audit she did fantastic thank you thank you Cheryl there I I have one other quick question so I know we always get dinged on the segregation of Duties as does every city of our of our size but we did just hire another additional staff person in the accounting or in the finance area is that going to help at all or like what do you have to do to get that one off of your radar how many more people would you have to have to split that up I'm just curious yeah um one person's probably not going to do it um but it will certainly help with the workflow I will say you know kind of getting the more quicker and faster and getting the audit done well I mean I mean you list sort of the the the things that were all done sort of by one person if there was I'm just just curious like if every one of those things were done by a different person would you say oh now that now that finding goes exactly just curious I'll actually make a note I I really didn't it didn't come to me that that's even a possibility but now that you mention it that could be a possibility and I will make a note for next year to evaluate that as I do the audit it's a good question very good well thank you thank you yeah thank you we'll see you when next year maybe yeah a year for no next feary we might not but January somebody will thank you very much two people m well more good news thank you everybody could we have a motion to accept the audit as presented by mmkr so I'll will move to accept the city of Columbus 2023 audit report prepared by the independent accounting firm of Malo Malloy mahu Kowski and rosovich mm KR did I do those right second Rob any other questions or discussions the best call for the vote Ron I sue I Janet I Rob I and Jesse I on to number three budget 2025 budget discussion Enterprise funds Pages seven and eight in our packet thank you Jesse attached in your packet are the proposed 2025 budget summaries for the Enterprise fund 601 water and 602 sewer the 20 25 budget proposals for these two accounts will be presented tonight to city council for review and discussion uh at this time we're looking at uh the item that's on your handout which is also presented on the screen and we're looking at projected cost in the water fund of $ 117,649 cost in the sewer fund of $132,450 projected revenues in the water fund of 160,000 projected revenues and the sewer fund of 140,000 These funds do not include anything collected through sack fees the sack fees are unpredictable these are just generated by our user cost our user fees and the bills that we collect from them so uh I don't know if you want to go over that line by line if you have any questions just dictate to us how you want us to go over these numbers with you this is Janet I do have a question um on the wages is this uh okay I'm looking at the water fund first is this just Karissa for her billing or do we also have some of Public Works wages in here currently it's just for Carissa but we're going to look at moving a portion of public public works over because after we did this we found out we have a significant Gap in the revenues versus the cost so we think we can comfortably move that over without affecting the rates for this year I'm sorry say that again you have a gap between the revenue and the the the the revenue is projected at 160,000 expenses are at 107 so we have some room room we have some room and we we will do that when in the update of this and that's I thought too and then you know I noticed that the number changed on the membership dues what are membership dues what little Club do we belong to in our water fund that would be the Minnesota Rural Water Association is the big one and I'm not sure do we belong to the American Waterworks Association gy we do not currently but we are looking to join that one as well so I noticed that the number went down by a couple of thousand back and adjusted those after we looked at them so we figured those could be reduced to reflect what expenditures have been we don't expect any further increases in those is a thousand enough to join the other one too uh I think it should be uh it's uh not expensive to do that so on on that one that Janet's talking about this is Rob so 420 and 2023 up to a th000 is that's to account for that new membership is that okay thank you and the revenue projections are based on what we took in for 2023 so if we have additional connections and that's going to result in higher Revenue figures and where are we with figuring that addition connection piece out that's something that's uh we're getting ready to get started on that uh Cheryl and I have had some interesting conversations over the past two days with some people that are trying to purchase a piece of property and are facing the reality of having to pay the Deferred assessments uh we as we talked about before we've identified 30 people that have service that passes by them that aren't connected we're going to develop a ways to contact them and start the process of trying to get those people connected it's an aggressive schedule but hopefully by the end of next year we'll work on trying to get the majority of those connected to the system uh in looking at some of this I think we're going to run in to some some issues because the sewer access or the sack charges are not very much uh in fact there's something we might want to look at raising it's $511 per sack unit uh some of our bigger costs are probably going to be on the sewer side but uh the Water whack fees are calculated uh it's somewhat of a complicated formula I thought I had to be Robert Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein today to try to figure it out but it's based on benefit to the acreage of property served you take the acreage of a property you essentially subtract the undeveloped portion of that out and you wind up with a benefiting acreage and there was apparently some type of an arbitrary eru or whack unit assigned to that a five per acre so on a particular piece we were looking at today their net benefiting Acres were $9 or N9 Acres so they owe 45 City whack units at $1,821 a piece so and I'm not sure if that was designed in in a way that was designed to collect and capture the money to advertise the loans uh I don't know exactly how that is but uh we found out too that a lot of people that had assessments had them deferred and they've sat there and made no payments on them and there's been substantial interest acred on these things which going to drive some of the cost up it's going to be a challenge on this but it's something that we desperately need to do and get started on in the next couple of weeks or by the time we get through the audit and the budget is this something we should put on a workshop schedule or something it would be very good to have it discussed at a workshop meeting to try to figure out if there's direction or exactly how we want to do that and if there's any other things other than just saying you know everything's got to be paid up front uh one of the things that we were talking about on this property today is it is for sale and they were informed that all these cost had to be paid at closing so question Jack you said 1,800 and then at 40 5 credits so we're talking like 80 plus th000 correct right around 87 Grand okay plus the cost that's going to be for them to hook it up right yeah plus the cost that that's the connection charge the physical connection charge is not something that we do they do but they do have to put an escrow up to cover that when you um Mr Mayor and Council when you prepare for your Workshop you might want to go back to some of those early minutes cuz I recall uh when people were were coming in for deferrals they were informed that interest would be clicking throughout that term and that it could be substantial depending on the term yes and to give you an example on this one particular property the um assessment fee was like 101,000 and the interest charges were 55 58 $58,000 but now they hadn't paid anything on this since 2008 either so and one other just item of History the eru if you will was the equivalent residential unit so converted from what you could what you could expect for a home on a similar parcel property times uh the what would be generated by a commercial property so five erus would be the equivalent of five home sites in terms of flow so there was kind of a method to the madness but I'm sure that'll come out in a work session and um help you kind of revisit history so we do have a bit of a challenge for us on this but it's something that needs to be initiated as soon as possible uh especially with the rising cost of operating these systems new requirements that are going to be coming down and some other infrastructure that we'll need we do need to broaden that customer base and then we also need to talk too about establishing what we want to do with depreciation charges currently we do not put any anything in the budget for depreciation it only covers our operating costs and our operating costs have been operating in the black but uh at some point the depreciation needs to be there at least if nothing else to cover what our future infrastructure needs are going to be all right item number four uh set the agenda for the August wait a minute want to talk about the sewer yep I I have one more question too and I don't know if you were talking about the um I'm looking at the last line in the water fund um Capital system maintenance that wasn't related to what you were just talking about was it no that's an amount we put aside each year to cover any types of emergency repair projects any types of other needs that uh are excessive in nature one that which we'll also talk about too and we talk about the proposal for the cleaning and the inspection of the sewer system uh those are funds that are needed when you have an issue with the water system or the sewer system you get the bill and then you know sometimes it's going to be $50,000 to get something fixed so we need some sufficient funds in there to cover that cost I was just noticing that most everything is flat except that one up but you we must move out of the uh move that out of the fund because there's no actuals to know how much we spent out of the capital system maintenance and I I'm not exactly sure how that was accounted for in the past one of the bases we were using that is just what we're what we may encounter on the sewer system could be encountered on the water system to give you an example if we have a major water leak it's going to cost us we're going to probably start out at $25 to $30,000 to get it fixed and depending on where it is if it's in the pavement it's going to cost more so those are things that uh you know we don't really budget for but I think we need this is kind of the the fund that covers those types of expenses so the most recent example that we have is remember when we were talking about the $100,000 well rehab that ultimately ended up costing 25,000 you don't see it on here because we were able to use arpa money for it so that's what that stuff is for it's kind of you know you start budgeting money in the beginning our system is new so everything works as it should and as time goes on pipes start to wear or you know things start to degrade pumps go bad you it so you need money to repair those things that's what that money is for okay so at this point we haven't had any major repairs but we're you know socking money away for that stuff so mhm and as Jim says we're starting to enter that portion of the life of the system that's at least 15 to 16 years old so there'll probably be more maintenance cost with this in the future on the existing portions of the system okay it it' be like Electronics you know um all of the control systems are 15 years old that you know those things start to break down um they don't make those parts anymore so it's a replacement so I mean all of that stuff is is what you plan for hope that you don't have to use it but at some point you you know you're going to well so maybe if we haven't used it maybe that's part of what's in our um fund that's we have a little bit over mhm like yeah and currently in the water fund the balance in that fund I believe is what a million close to a million dollars um and that seems like a lot of money but in those types of public utility things it is not uh public utilities are a very expensive business especially when things go wrong in the sewer fund I think the balance is somewhere over $400,000 okay and you know the other thing too we've discussed upgrades to the water system that may be required in the future with either things to synchronize our system better or the water tank uh some of these funds could be used to help offset those costs too okay anybody else um I think the only other question I had was in the sewer fund it would be uh well sewer expense met Council cuz that was really the only one that really went up that's what we have to pay each year to cover the discharge our flow charges for the treatment of our seage effluent and they send us that bill and it's based on their projections uh it was went up probably $220,000 we asked them what the reasons were they're always like a year behind on these so this accounts for gloves uh probably some improvements to the hotel or increase usage of Running Aces so as we add these other establishments on these flow char are going to increase so those are things we need to watch closely and those are the things that are probably going to affect their rates as much as anything basically every year we do reports we tell them how many gallons we send them they bill us appropriately for that so it it's kind of a double-edged sword we want business to come in but that generates more more water usage more sewer usage this will go up as as you know development goes okay yeah I just noticed that I mean our actuals are don't go over 40,000 so I was just curious how that well on on on that one too the 57 ,750 was our actual cost last for what we budgeted for 2024 based on what the Met Council sent what their flows were for that year so we had don't the 2020 if we could go through the portion of the year but those are paid monthly so there's really no real breakdown so you can see you know is it this much this month so it's just a flat monthly fee that we pay them you have to divide that by 12 so it's about4 to $5,000 a month we pay them at counsel for those flow charges okay I think that was the only other question I had anybody else so is the plan then you come back with I mean a revised one with the public works um salary INF Fringe added into this in time for us to included in our preliminary Levy that's correct okay we just want to go over this and show you where we were now this is the first report on it it gives us time to analyze too once you get it in this form and table but the one that we will bring forth for the preliminary budget hearing we'll have some additions too in the cost of transferring some of our either current admin staff or public work staff over to absorb some of their salaries from the water budget okay do we need to take any action on this no this is just for discussion review and any direction from city council okay all right jack number four agenda for the August 5th city council Workshop meeting is scheduled for Monday August the 5th 2024 at 5:30 p.m. following items are recommended for meeting agenda discussion review and discussion of the post changes to chapter 14 Public Health Wells sewers and utilities and we'd like to kind of break this up into two different items we have a lot to cover on this and then also include the last two items on our budget preliminary discussions from is the last part of that meeting and that would be the Parks Board and also I'd like to add another item on there too is just a preliminary discussion of a potential rezoning consideration for one of our business areas around Lake Drive and those are the three items that I would recommend that we include on the meeting can you repeat that resoning of what it's a rezoning of our General commercial area on Lake Drive a consideration to rezone that possibly to mixed use okay and we'll just go over and we'll just present what we've run in not run into but encountered and some things that might make it a little bit easier when we're dealing with developers that come in there so there'll be three items yes okay want me to make the motion yes you need Mo so I'd move to approve the agenda for the August 5th 2024 city council Workshop meeting presented in item C3 of the July 24th city council meeting packet with the addition of of the third agenda item of preliminary discussion of resoning of um The General commercial business district off a Lake Drive this is Su all second any other questions or additions I'll call for the vote Ron I sue I Janet I Rob I and Jesse I letter D consultant liaison and staff reports city engineer Kevin we're uh looking at making payments on our uh payment maintenance uh projects uh the first one being their uh micros servicing project pay estimate number one uh this is to Aztec Corporation and that's in the amount of uh 213,000 $24.28 uh the project is essentially complete but we're just working out some uh discussions on some payment items and so it might be another month before we get that resolved um but I do recommend uh making this first payment on the project so through the mayor to Kevin um what is our remaining balance on as far as draws goes after this as far as uh on this particular project yeah and and you can get it to me after that's fine no actually I have the same question cuz I was having a hard time making the numbers make sense between your memo and what was shown on the spreadsheet it it looked like there was overspending but I don't know if that's true or not and I just don't understand we had some overruns on some quantities we did change um some painting that we did on the project some striping uh from what our original intent was on 147th we went from uh the original striping on that was like a skip striping and we after Jim and I talk we decided to go with a double yellow stripe uh for the entire length of the project so that was a an overrun on that project um or on that item uh we did overrun a little bit on our binous material which is basically the oil uh that's in the U mix um we always go with may we estimate what we think is going to be used um being that this is our first time around with uh with this uh type of application uh we did learn some things but and it's always a function too of of the condition of the roadway how much material we use we did overrun a little bit on that item and we're also discussing with the contractor or uh they came back with a higher quantity on the the final course and that's where we're kind of having a dis disagreement in order to close out the contract so so it'll never totally match exactly what the bid amount was in the end it'll either be a little bit higher or a little bit lower in the end so is it is it correct to look at you know the last three columns of this and say it's going to be $10,000 higher uh at this point correct yes [Music] so with that being said this Rob um how does that work then with the overages is that something that should have been approved previous for us because we approved a certain budget and how does that work with when they typically a unit price contract like this um you know we look at I mean we could have came back and said do you approve us switching the striping from from a skip striping to a double double yellow stripe typically we just handle that internally we we uh make those decisions based on what the overall budget is and say that we can cover this item so we don't bring that back to you for approval so this might be good to have kind of a policy on that I mean I this one's 5% over so maybe you know we had a policy that said anything that was within some tolerance doesn't need to come back I don't know maybe we have a policy like that I don't know I've never seen it usually you always overestimate and we're always like doing the happy dance because it costs less yeah I mean uh sometimes these maintenance projects are a little bit hard to estimate um and get exact um and sometimes you don't know what you got until you're done MH that's the problem I mean uh when we when we put down the binous material um you know you you kind of make an estimate you get in terms of how many gallons per square yard you're going to use um but in the end it's a matter of filling divots and holes and potholes and whatnot and so you don't you never hit it exact so you're either going to be a little high or a little low um so this might be the first one ever that has been over I that's that's why I think that's why you're getting I think that's why you're getting the reaction that you are cuz we're not used to that usually 20 under or something usually usually it's under so this this is a but to be fair it's the first time we've done it right correct and with this product so he talked about the striping too we we opted to go with a double yellow because we're really working on speeds and the intent double yellow you're not supposed to pass right so Howard Lake Drive people walk over there there's no shoulders we double yellowed it in and in past it wasn't that way and we didn't think about that prior but we had a conversation after and it's like we should do that because you know they don't need to pass there so so I mean some some of that stuff was just you know it it just makes saf cents to do it so thank you and typically if we thought we were going to blow the budget Out of Water we would bring that back but since we know what kind of what we're working with we we try make some of these internal decisions so you need a just a motion on that or motion to approve the estimate as presented ahead is it on [Music] here who wants arm wrestle for it you asked the question Sue can you give me a recommendation for a motion I'd make the motion to approve the payment of pay estimate number one for the micr servicing project for Aztec and that would be it so moved second any other questions Rob we'll call for the vote Ron I sue I Janet I Rob I and Jesse I next one is for our chip seal project uh which is also complete but this is just our uh estimate number one again uh maybe jumping to initially our change order um we did have a change order on this project to modify the aggregate that we used on the project uh I had specified a quar inch chip seal Aggregate and we really wanted an e in aggregate um so there was a 4 Cent difference on the unit price uh which uh amounted based on our bid quantity to be a change order of $7,900 uh but ultimately was uh we did underrun on that item so ultimately was not uh a total of 7900 is actually in the end $ 6,600 additional dollars on that item um but we are also under running on um overall quantity so we're looking good at this point of bringing this in um on or under budget uh we do have some quantity in here for Sweeping in the spring uh Jim and I were just talking about that we don't know how much of that we will use I'm optimistic that we may not have to sweep much at all so there could be S some savings there on the overall contract and uh we did finish uh painting everything but they just completed that this week so that's not included in this particular estimate at this time so this is Janet so I would move to approve the pay estimate number one to Allied black top for the chip sealing project in the amount of 316,400 questions or discussions I'll call for the vote I sue I janed I Rob Jesse I next item is uh in relation to the uh Brown beagle project uh we had a request from the developer uh John Sawyer for a reduction in his letter of credit uh this is related to the underground sewer and water utilities that will be city-owned on this project and so we have a original sh on the development agreement was for $46,200 uh they're making a request uh for $265 oh wait a minute 140,000 excuse me $1 14,43 125 that's based on uh work done by gustaffson Excavating who did the work for them so we're recommending approval of the reduction in the letter of credit in the amount of $1 14,495 so this is Janet and I would um make a motion to approve the request um from uh Brown Bagel LLC for the reduction in their letter of credit um in the amount of 4,439 25 for the completed Public Utilities work um leaving a balance of 265,000 Mr Mayor and Council just have a quick report on the stands Inc matter and Kevin Meyers um stands and the city entered into a stipulation of dismissal in July um what that does is dismiss dismisses the case against STS because STS had very little to do with the The Spill and they would not enter into any kind of negotiated settlement without the um other driver's insurance company turns out the other driver was uninsured has a number of judgments against him and is what we call in the business business judgment proof meaning he's got more liabilities and assets and so we had said to the previous City administrator and also to the current city administrator we would pursue this as far as we could without getting into a full-blown lawsuit which would be more expensive than any recovery so uh judgment was made to uh dismiss the case uh before we did that stands and uh the city were able ble to obtain a default judgment against the other driver uh should the other driver have ever come into means to uh pay that judgment uh seems unlikely given his current Financial State so we did a fair amount of Investigation of his insurance uh we had a number of settlement discussions But ultimately decided in the interest of the city and the fees that would be generated uh you know legal fees that would be generated in this case it was more prudent to dismiss the case so can you remind me is this the one that ran into the side of the truck over by loves yes and caused the diesel spill or the right okay cross the center line pickup truck ran into the the diesel fuel truck and the diesel fuel spilled across the a brand new section of roadway yes which will have to be addressed at some point at some point yes I mean it looks okay currently today but that doesn't mean that it won't mg grade at a faster rate or something of that sort so anything else spill that's all thank you mhm mayor and uh city council Ron do you have anything to well I can just jump to the Parks Board committee should I just read that off I I Don't Know Jack did I checked some of those emails did you set up us uh joint commit meeting yet not yet that's one thing that I'll bring up in my city administrative reports okay well I met uh at the park board uh meeting they had a lot of issues they were talking about and I could go right down one two three on them they start about the park lighting and that's had to deal with the lighting on uh Kettle River Boulevard transferring that to the inside to park instead of showing out uh they're still waiting for a bid to come in on that and what they decided to do is uh when Lori gets the bid she's going to contact the park board so they can have like a mini meeting to see if the funds are worth it to do it or reject it and go on to something else the tenis court came up the issue and there some bids came in on that around 30,000 to uh resurface it and then other things came in such as a pickle board addition and there's a lot lot of money going on here talking so what happened is is U the park boards come to the conclusion that they don't have a lot of money to deal out with these big issues along you add into the idea that the ash trees are dying over their left and right who's going to pay for that does that come out of their funds etc etc so uh they decided they'd like to meet with the council and have a joint meeting on funding because they just don't know where they're going and don't want to fund some or step into somewhere not knowing they're not going to have something down the end of the road and with Park dedication funds not really coming in at a high rate they're they're kind of unstable on decision making so we talked about uh August 13th am I correct Jack we we we did my suggestion would be to have it on on August we can't have it on August the 13th because that's election day okay so looking at that if city council will be willing to have a joint meeting with the park board and have it on the 14th at 5:00 that would be before our city council meeting we wouldn't have to come back and reschedule that for another night if that met with council's schedule I like that idea doing it on a city council night oh it's Rob question on that so um if I'm recalling last year some of the cell phone tower money did we allocate that back to the Y all of it so that isn't going to be enough to well know quite a substantial maybe this disc just is a big discussion yeah I don't think it's even yeah and I'll bring it up at that and getting up to it because I mean they just had funds taken out for the last trees that was like $8,000 or something like that for the but we're talking about major trees we're not talking about eight or nine we're talking 30 or 40 that have to come out or something's got to happen with them but that that's one of the the the issues that uh they want to talk about and that then a big part of all their uh discussions have to do with money and they look at what they got and where if they keep you know if they're looking forward to redoing that path years to come up where are they going to get the money on that I can jump up to the other stuff cuz that's a discussion I think that we'll have to have with them on the 14th of August uh RVs or um Ryan Stark's uh lawn service was there and he said he doesn't see any increase in their service with the park the park board all kind of unanimous said they're doing a good job and I agree with them 100% on that they also talked about removal of the tennis court timers those timers up there that in the parking lot and uh they moved this down the road because they're not harming anything at the moment but we're going to put those brick uh stops in there then came the big thing was the park master plan uh they developed a committee and the two people on the committee are Brad and Steve and uh and along with Jack and where they're going to sit down and uh develop this master plan to bring it to them and Bob Bodine will be an alternate on that subcommittee but back to the ash trees uh and the tenis court funding in that uh there's a lot of like I said expenses and they don't know where they're going to go with that another item they talked about was uh the Christmas lights they agreed to put $500 to his Christmas lights to the Pavilion or Holiday Lights whatever you want to put them to The Pavilion and then we talked about uh the dugouts for the softball fields and uh they were willing to dedicate 10,000 towards that next year with the idea of waiting to see what flaw Forest Lake Athletic Association comes back with I thought that uh that night I thought that uh Melissa was going to contact uh Jack and get some talking going but there's been no movement on that side but they're just kind of budgeting that in for next year whether they use it or not is another issue we'll see what they have to do so but I I think the big issue and I think we all got to get our our brains wrapped around it I know they get the money from there but the maintenance is where does the maintenance stop are they required to take all them trees down out of their budget or is the city going to It's that kind of thing that's coming up with the problem uh and the tenis courts the same thing is it do we let it get to a point where it becomes a liability and have to close them down or resurface it you resurface it for 30,000 and you can redo the whole thing for 100,000 but where do you where do you get the money so so Ron as it relates to that that ashb and what's going on right now I mean you drive around Columbus and you're seeing it it had spread extremely over the last couple years you drive by Running Aces every one of their ash trees is dead but they're in public right away too so we're responsible to take those down too do that we do have a larger issue though right I mean oh yeah I did bring it up to the committee I don't know if anybody did go to it but I couldn't make it cuz I was out of town but uh Senator KW was at Running Aces I didn't go there but I asked them to maybe go and talk to him about getting State funding for that or maybe they got something going with the state to help cities get rid of these ash trees so that was one thing they I thought they were going to a couple of them were going to go talk to them but so that was the meaning thanks okay thank you so my report is um I did go to that uh Senator CR thing and it was nobody from the park board was there that I could see um but it was good it was a it was a good event and it was nice to see our uh State officials um it was a night it was a beautiful night to be there um but also I wanted to mention on the park for the record I told Jim this last week but um I we rented my family rented the Pavilion at the park over here for 4th of July because of the last minute when it was raining we're like we need something that has a shelter and I hadn't used the park before so it was beautiful um everything was kept I mean everything was just so manicured um and clean and everything in my family was very impressed with um how nice the park was so thank you so thank you for keeping it clean and nice that's all um I have a couple things that are already the Planning Commission report and the which is written report and there wasn't that much going on so you guys can just read it I don't need to report on it there's no action or anything like that that we need to take looks like it's on page 47 of our packet um I was also at the uh event at Running Aces and agree with Sue it was really it was nice to have some time to talk to both Senator KW and representative West and to uh hear their commitment to uh helping Columbus in the future so that was all really good and um and we did get to meet sorry to interrupt you no that's right uh mark Johnson the minority leader was there yep he was he was there and um I think uh and then we'll have a separate report on the Personnel committee and I can bring up the um other topic that I have during that time all right thank you mayor um only thing I have to report uh one of our problem areas uh in Columbus where typically there's trash dumped uh in Columbus here it's it's kind of a regular Dumping Ground um but just a big thanks to Public Works it was Sunday morning I received a text message of a picture of what seemed to be a whole dump truck load of roofing materials was dumped in the ditch and on the roadside um and I got a call from that Resident hours after uh thanking and wanting me to give Public Works a big shout out and from myself as well it was cleaned up within hours and it was a lot of material so 10 and Jim came in on on a Sunday and got that all cleaned up to clear that roadway so thanks to you and um residents are very and a Camp stre Road ah I think it was maybe a month ago you were picking couches up down there as well uh there's been cars boats all kinds of stuff dumped down there over the years so it's right at Carlos Avery so we don't know who's doing the dumping could be could a variety of different people okay yeah and it's on City not Carlos Avery land it is on the it was on the city road correct it was on the city road yeah and in the city ditch and one of the things they made sure they went through to see if there was any indication of any kind of receipts bills any kind of name on it the sheriff's department came out there and took a look at it but there was no evidence found as to who dumped it time for a camera what up a sign the camera all right anything else does it mayor thank you I have nothing everything has been covered that I was attending Public Works uh 182nd Lane sign no you skip the Personnel committee number go for it so um there's a couple things one is we've been working with Ellen on the um uh list that we went over and prioritized uh of of uh suggestions that were made as part of the organizational review so you'll probably see that coming back to you sometime in the next two or two to four weeks um and the next step for that would be for us to decide um you know what gets done this year what gets done whenever who does it we actually made some suggestions about who would do these things and then if there's a budgetary impact we'll we'll talk about that too so you'll see that coming back and then um we are waiting to hear from our it consultant before we can post the assistant City administrator position we do have a job description that's been finalized we talked about the budget for it in the past so that's all good to go um but there is um some work that needs to be done on that recruitment email and I don't did you get a chance Jack to connect with Phil on that I have not yet but that's on my agenda for tomorrow so as soon as we as soon as we get that um that part figured out then we can go ahead and post that and then um there is also a um gal who we spoke to kind of informally um she is um a marketing uh Communications public relations lots of different uh uh expertise um lives in Cedar and was interested in doing some Consulting work really doing what we are Contracting um kind of on a on a temporary basis uh Connor to do to maintain our website and take care of those kinds of things um she has lots of experience uh in this area she worked for the city of monacello and did event planning their website their social media um coordination of volunteers a whole bunch of different things for them for several years and she's done a similar sort of Consulting for um other municipalities she um was I I mean she blew me away in terms of her um her enthusiasm her passion for what she does her experience um she has an LLC she's actually more interested in working with us on a Consulting basis um than in becoming employee and she um float and now Jack you gave me a a a draft of a contract which I haven't had a chance to look at yet but she floated an hourly rate of $25 an hour which is uh I think really reasonable um for her to do the work so what I'd like to do is to get the council's um direction that we can move forward in engaging in a contract with her l LC to provide um that those services and we'll write up a work scope and some expectations and then transition that work from Connor to to her um and right now we are paying Connor um at his uh wage and and benefit he's actually working for us as an employee and I think we're we're uh we got approval to um charge up to 10 hours a week for that work so if we take that same sort of dollar amount and apply it towards her with maybe a couple of weeks of overlap so that there can be a um uh a sharing of knowledge between the two of them then you know we could potentially get her going on on some of these things that have been kind of languishing maybe in the beginning of August is what I'd like to shoot for possible and one thing to consider too is that Connor now is employed uh it's not full-time job yet but it may develop into that so his ability to fulfill our Communications and website updates and other media needs has been limited a little bit he's only available in the evenings and on the weekends and we didn't look at this as a long-term solution anyway it was kind of a stop Gap uh this young lady has incredible experience and you can tell she's very impassionate they're very passionate engaged in her work in this field and she would do it on a contract basis as Janet said for $25 an hour so with Conor were paying $30 an hour plus he still is getting pair of Social Security and Medicare payments so that translates out to about 36 so for the equivalent 10 hours a week we would be getting that service about $100 cheaper or we could even expand our hours a couple and not exceed what we're currently paying so this may a good way be to bridge the gap until the assistant City administrator gets on here fulltime it would also be a good way too we can also use her in times of need going forward I think it would be a good relationship and she might be a good addition to the city since she'd be a contract employee we'd only have to use her when we needed her so right I do have kind of a one-page um sort of resume I'll just pass this around so you can take a look at it but um I can certainly answer any questions anybody has otherwise I'll I'm assuming we need a motion to move forward with this anybody have any questions all right then I would so I I actually do have a question so we had talked previously with the assistant administrator had we talked about I believe and correct me if I'm wrong we talked about moving the roles of Connor into the S assistant City administrator so how does this play into that so what we talked about is using the dollars for that position towards the assistant City administrator and we still do plan to do that and there's there is a balance I think what we would what we had envisioned is that the assistant City administrator would oversee this function not necessarily do the function and and we were I guess we were hoping that we would find a consultant that could do it and this person just sort of landed in our lap um we hadn't actually gone out looking she is um fiance for somebody who Jack knows with Metro inet which is a a consulting firm that does um it for for municipalities and so he knew that we had lost um Connor and that we had you know we're looking at trying to figure out what we were going to do to sort of fill that need and suggested we talked to his fiance and she was amazing sure and then to answer your question more specifically too Rob the funds combining with the other position that was already in the budget with Connors would allow us to cover this cost this year and also it would be there would be that balance there in 2025 to cover any expenditure should it go into that year so then one more question on this so we'd pay them $25 an hour and then at the end of the year would they be issued at $199 yes y so if they're taking direction from us is that a legality bill no this is not a full position uh the consultant would be free to uh determine her hours um how much time she's going to spend on it whether she's going to spend any time on it right and she uses her own equipment and she I mean so she meets all the definition of a consultant I mean it's really no difference you get where I'm going with that right yeah yeah and I and I know and I'm sensitive to that too but I think it's similar to our other Consultants like Ellen who takes her direction from the Personnel committee and um I don't know Bill do you take your direction from Jack and so I mean there's there's always there's always some Direction that's being given by by um by staff or councel to these positions and this would would be no different than that sure at times I just get stuck in my world in construction you know the nin step factor and things of that nature so no I think she really will I mean I'd love it if she came and you know we had a big enough need that we could hire someone like her um full-time but to be honest I think think what Connor's position taught us was that we hadn't really um we don't really have the volume that supports one full FTE and so it makes sense to to then and especially you know there are people out there that do this stuff on a Consulting basis so it makes sense to try to fill that need this way at least for now okay thank you anything else anyone good questions though so then um I would move move uh to uh direct uh our city administrator to um engage in uh negotiating a contract with uh fostering it's fostering Communications is her LLC is that correct Jack yes okay um uh ideally beginning around the beginning of August and that is to um provide uh website support social soci media support Communications um newsletter things like that and uh utilizing the dollars that were already allocated for those uh Services um towards uh Connor Keith's um con sort of part-time uh employment and that would then be moved to this Consulting and then we would terminate the um the employment contract with with uh Connor which actually is what he wants to and we still have about two more two to three more weeks of work that we would be needed from Connor so y at the end of that overlap then yeah switch over to that full that arrangement of that person to go do this for all things that are going on in that department yeah and we certainly can have her come and meet all of you if you'd like to meet her she I think you'll you'll find she is it's super exciting to have someone so excited about helping us and having all these all this experience to be able to draw from and like oh we could do this well let me look at this website well this website does this I I don't know let's look and see if yours it doesn't you just haven't utilized that so it's all good all right this is Su all second any other questions Lo call vote Ron I sue I Janet I Rob and Jesse I anything else I don't think so not from the Personnel committee all right now we're on to Public Works uh assign request for 182nd Jim do you want to take the first one and I'll grab the second one um the city received an email from Jennifer Wesco requesting a sign um I I'll be honest with you I don't I don't really know what sign says to to cover this but basically she wants a sign saying that there's no turnaround at the end of the road which is somewhat true um I have never had a request for that I do not know what that sign would even say and to be honest with you I'm not a proponent of signs I don't know that it's going to C any troubles either so I I guess what we're here to we have a request for sign that says no I I don't know what it'll say I mean if if you if you tell me to move forward with this we'll have to come up with some creative sign and and have it made because I don't know if there is one out there for it but I guess where I'm trying to go is she's requesting a sign that says there's no turnaround at the end because they've had some people go down there with trailers or you know bigger vehicles and they can't turn around I think we all know the turnar around that we're talking about we had many conversations about it so we're just trying to figure out what what do you want us to do with it now was the one we improved right Chim we no we did not improve we didn't no okay we actually made long story we had talked about and then we stopped we made it less of a turnaround than it used to be let's say that okay Jim what was what was the precipitating factor I mean there's one one instance of a truck going down there not being able to turn around or what do you know what the like I can't believe that there's a lot of this happening I mean it's clearly a residential Road in the email and don't don't quote me cuz I read this thing a couple of weeks ago um it says that Amazon has trouble and there was a picture of a truck down there with a trailer that was trying to turn around MH um that those are the two instances that I know I have never gotten a call on it until I've seen this email so I you couldn't prove to me that it's a problem I can't I'm not surprised that it's a problem so is her concern that she doesn't want people using her driveway to to try to turn around I don't recollect if it's stated in there what her concern was other than there's no turn around because I mean even even with you know kind of where we ended up I mean if you had a big trailer or a semi go down there I could see them having problems turning around but I can't imagine that that happens even once a year an Amazon van would have no problem turning around in that space I I can't I I can't I can't speak to exactly other than the truck that I seen that was back down into the ditch trying to turn around mhm um I was going to say why if anybody's going down there they're going down to some somebody's house because there's only two driveways so if there was a delivery wouldn't they go into that person's driveway and then turn and then back out I mean how many big trailers are going down there would only be for her resident or the her neighbor again I I mean I like I said I I can't necessarily answer that she sent a picture of a I'm if I remember right it was a pickup truck with a trailer around there that might have had some sort of equipment on I don't remember what it was might have been a skid steer or something but they were trying to turn around down there totally opposite of how I would have tried to do it but nevertheless um it's not I wouldn't go down there with a truck and trailer at this point without if I did I would end up backing all the way out I you guys do go down there with a snowplow we do and and I mean we turn around with a single axle dump truck for Absolut but um and garbage trucks and I guess at this point I don't know what school buses do I assume they still turn around down there somehow so what does a sign cost Jim all said and done I I mean 200 bucks but it's more about I mean there there must there are standard signs and then there's reasons to put signs up and I I just I'm having a hard time trying to figure out what the reason for putting this sign up is if we don't have if we can't we can't tell somebody they can't turn around can we or I mean can you put up a way at the end of the road and they can turn around best as they can yeah right but it's just a friendly reminder isn't it well then you would want to tell them we only have so much space for you to turn around if you can't make it in this space don't come down here Mr mayor council I don't know and Jim can answer this do we use dead end signs any anywhere in in there there is a no Outlet sign at the beginning of the road so cuz cuz there is no Outlet right it may say no Outlet it may say dead end I don't I don't know which y but it it does say that so that's already there yeah correct yeah oh then I don't know what would help to have a dead end signed and say no turn around I I I think she's requesting something that says no turnaround not dead end that was her turnaround and with the traffic that could be expected to go down there with most of the delivery type Vehicles now uh it's possible to turn around it may take a little bit of maneuvering but if you're careful you can get turned around down there when it says no turnaround I think it's trying to express the fact that there's not room enough to exercise a turnaround like a culde saac but you know who knows how anybody's interpret that and I don't think it really matters because I think the dead if there's a dead end no Outlet sign down there then uh I think that should be sufficient to cover the problem and I've been another place where we had issues with delivery drivers that followed GPS directions over a piece of dedicated but undeveloped City street that only had a 33t rideway and they continue to go through down to there and they complain to us about it and they said we're tearing our mirrors off we're scratching the top of our vehicles and the response was don't go down that way then there's another way it's a paved road quarter of a mile out of your way use that I know it's not the same but sometimes these delivery drivers they're kind of a has the city received any I mean other than Jennifer's um inquiry have we received any complaints from anybody I have not no so her her email was the first the first request or the first person that I've talked to about it so so to this point are you aware on Iverson Street if there's a dead on sign I believe there was at one time I can't say that there is I can tell you that there should be yeah so I mean there's no Outlet or there's you know what I mean so there they should all be posted that way um every every Road in town that does not have an outlet should be posted that way whether a sign was removed or knocked down and we don't know about it at this point um they should all be posted that way yeah it just poses a question because a lot of people will come from the car dealership test driving a car thinking they can cut back over to Broadway and they go down Iverson Street at 70 M an hour and there's kids that potentially dogs cats yeah they're not supposed to be on the road JY I know that was coming but it's a reality so it's not a reason to run them over though right anyway just wanted to bring that up so I guess you're looking for direction I'm just having a hard time justifying putting a sign up there when there already is one that clearly says there's no Outlet especially if you haven't received any complaints in to the city what we basically said was we would bring it to the city council and we would follow their directions so if direction is do nothing we'll respond to her and say city council doesn't want to do anything with it if your direction is we come up with some sort of sign and we put it up and we'll do that as well well I'm just having a hard time figuring out like why this road and not every road that doesn't have an outlet I mean you know I mean there's probably at the end of Iverson there's not a lot of space there either so there's a sufficient amount but yeah but I think there is here too I just think you know someone got in trouble and so anyway I just think we don't I don't see the need I think I'm going to follow your direction so you tell me what you want and that's what we'll do do you want a motion or do you just want this to say don't need I think direction is fine um I I would just maybe soften the the message a little bit in that there is an existing sign and that seemed to be um kind of part of the council's determination that there's existing signage so us as a council see that sign as sufficient yeah for all in agreeance there is existing sign please reach out to us if there seems to be more problems in the future mhm okay so where on this map Jim is the existing sign um I'm not sure what on Lexington it's going to be just as you turn off off of Lexington onto 182nd yeah it'll be within the first 100 ft I can I can maybe zoom in and see how far it's a dead end sign no Outlet I'm going to say it's probably within the first 50 ft of the road thank you sewer system maintenance project I think we're on to the next you want to start it you probably got more leg work into it than I do at this point I'm ready to go sewer system Inspection Cleaning project the city of Columbus constructed a water and sewer system to serve those properties that AB interstate highway 35 of Service Roads that have commercial light industrial and certain high density residential development opportunities sewer portion of this system was constructed in stages beginning in 2004 and completed in 2008 the system currently serves 53 residential and 20 commercial customers with the exception of a portion of the section three of the sewer system which is Zurich Street around Running Aces and exhibit is attachment for your packet no cleaning or internal inspection of the system has incurred since it was put into service to address this concern and minimize City liability regarding sewer backup issues the city requested quotes to provide sewer cleaning inspection for approximately 38,000 linear feet of sewer line two quotes were received and those are exhibited in attachment 7 and8 the third request for this service was contacted but was nonresponsive cleaning in internal inspection is a fundamental maintenance function to enhance the operation of a collection system and lift stations and lessen the likelihood of sewer backups the city of in NOA cleans and inspects approximately 1/4 of their system annually and L Lakes has a 5-year cleaning syst schedule for their system with problems cleaned annually or semi semiannually these service intervals are typical for sewer collector and Interceptor lines sewer backups are primarily due to obstructions in the lines and can result in significant property damage but can be minimized by schedu ased maintenance to identify and remove potential sources of backups the city has insurance for backup claims through their league of Minnesota's Insurance trust coverage however implementing a regular system of Maintenance policy includes cleaning line cleaning lift station and manhole inspection can lessen certain deductible costs and reduce our exposure to any share of the liability claims of charges I did attach a link in your packet that gave a little bit more detail on sewer cleaning and what the importance of it is uh the benefits of the sewer line cleaning inspection offer efficiency longevity and reliability of the sewer infrastructure fall or advantages to performing this essential maintenance program early problem detection reduced risk of backups and overflows it can help avoid excessive repairs it optimizes maintenance schedules it increases flow efficiency and capacity within the lines it helps in meeting standards that are set by the league in the state and it provides documentation of existing conditions and it minimizes and identifies inflow and infiltration problems and it can lower insurance premiums removal of sewage search charge can cost $7 to14 per square foot based on industry averages in general residential Wastewater cleanup and restoration Falls between $2,000 to $10,000 per occurrence depending on the severity of the backup damage these costs may be up to or exceed $50,000 in some cases especially if they involve serious Plumbing remediation and other repair issues the price for Contracting for this service would be $61,000 $750 this expense could be covered by the capital system maintenance funds in the 2024 budget and the balance from unallocated accumulation rolled over from this line item from 2023 in city sewer fund 602 line item Capital system maintenance $30,000 has been allocated for this type of expense reached to the last 3 years with only 7753 expended during that time period in addition city sewer fund 602 has the current cash ballot $462,000 with these monies being appropriate funds for emergency and maintenance projects these are Enterprise funds that are collected from sewer system users and are not part of the city general fund staff is recommending that city council consider Institute a cleaning and line inspection program that would meet the requirements recommended by the league of Minnesota cities and engage the services of a qualified vendor to implement the cleaning an internal inspection phase of that program should city council decide to consider this I would recommend that a motion be made to improve the contract proposal from Vis sewer in the amount of $61,200 for sewer cleaning and inspection and to direct staff to prepare a policy for system inspection and cleaning compliant with lmc's recommended requirements well take the questions that was a lot of information yeah I mean I was just going to say I'm surprised that we didn't have one already after putting so our system I'm going to use the terminology unique it's it's 38,000 linear feet of pipe which sounds like a lot but in the grand scheme of things it's not necessarily that much in comparison to a force lake or Lion of lakes or Wyoming um our system is also growing extremely slow so there were portions of our system that potentially weren't used even though they were installed in 2008 there were no users in that area so really no need to do any maintenance because you know there's it's not being used um in years past um we have borrowed jedar trucks from current city uh Wyoming uh they used to own one so we would borrow theirs and we would jet the line from Running Aces down to basically prer preserve because that was the heavily use they had a restaurant there was Grease issues I mean we had some we had some troubles there um after covid Running Aces closed their restaurant and that didn't alleviate the problem but made it considerably better um but now now we have some high users we have the hotel Running Aces is running strong we have L's Travel Plaza we have these heavy users incrementally around the system now and now basically we need to start doing the maintenance because you know we don't we don't we don't want to run into the trouble the goal of Public Works and the sewer water department is to stay out of the news and this is part of it so okay thank you for that that makes sense um is the 61,7 is that's just to implement a maintenance program no that that base that 61,000 whatever the total number is that basically Jets and cameras our whole entire system and when they go through so they clean it and then they run a camera through there and then we get that footage from the camera and we can we will know what the what we'll call them hot spots like this this is a problem area here we see ini I here and we can look at that and that camera shows the footage everywhere so we can literally say it's 250 ft from this manhole we can go to a manhole measure 250 ft if there's I and I there we could dig a hole and we can make that repair so you clean it then you run the camera through or they kind of do it simultaneously actually but um that shows us where all of our problem areas are and then we can keep an eye on that so if we have areas that aren't um what we're going to say problematic we can push that time out a little bit and if we have areas that are are problematic we maybe end up having to do those more frequent as a general rule of thumb they talk about every four to six years most people do five um I don't see a reason why we can't go to six at this point but you know will know more obviously after they run a camera through that or say everything looks good or you have problems areas that we need to keep an eye on so when you were jetting the pipes or whatever you were doing before you just don't you don't have a camera you were just jetting it and we just we just cleaned it so we all of our pipes were cameraed when they were new but they have not had a camera in them since they've been new I can tell you we may run into some problem areas we've had some connections I know when Muddy Paws hooked up um that pipe their their actual connection was broken so you know we potentially could have some inii we could have some you know mud or gravel or sand or something that is getting into the system so you know it's Pro it's not a bad idea for us to do the whole thing and know exactly where we sit today and then we can come up with a you know maybe maybe the next run the maintenance plan looks slightly different so one one of the things that's useful to do the TV or the video inspection of the pipe is we talked about the flow charges from met counil what they're up to some of that could actually be infiltration of groundwater into the existing pipes or inflow from leaky manholes illegal connections uh I don't think we probably have that situation here in a lot of older cities people used to hook their roof drains up to the lines uh something pumps up to the Sewer lines which means clean water was discharged in there but then there were charged for treating it sometimes this can be highly significant up to the point where it actually floods smaller treatment plants out so it's good to know what that situation is too it could reduce some of our flow charges but it instead of reducing it is probably more a preventive thing we have a record of it to document what we have if we find something we can fix it and it may help stabilize those in the future too but this is a thing that's typical and standard for maintaining sewer systems I just used the two uh what Anoka and Lio had just because I was looking through for some other stuff but uh probably every system around us has some maintenance program and sets this up they either have the equipment to do it or contracted in our situation it's much more efficient cheaper for us to contract this out y if you've looked at the contract too um they they will probably be here for the better part of a month so I mean it's a it's an extensive process the hard part about our system is it's not in the middle of the street like in most communities a lot of our stuff is in the ditch um along a busy County Road so I mean there's just not it's not an easy process um and it's time consuming so w and expensive I mean if you buy a jedar truck they're comparable to fir truck money so I mean they're they're expensive so Jack you said the money is already already there to do this correct correct what we have is you know we talked about the system maintenance charges when we had the little budget discussion here we would use $30,000 from that from this year's budget and then the balance of it we would take from the sewer fund balance of $462 to pay for the rest of it and again these are these fees are collected from users and this doesn't affect the general ly at all okay well to me it sounds like a sensible Safeguard yes I totally agree especially after all these years mhm so anybody else have an opinion I just have one question I agree that it sounds like a sensible Safeguard but there's um so in terms of lowering our insurance premium there's a lot of maze do we know for sure it will or we don't know we don't know but we know for certain if we have this it's going to help them not going up uh the biggest thing is if we don't have this policy if we don't do this service if we have a sewer backup the league may come back to say us and says well we're going to cover part of this but because you didn't have this maintenance program in place we can't cover it up to the limit of liability of the policy well I mean don't we know can't we I'm not saying we shouldn't do it I'm this is more of a question from a policy standpoint I mean it seems to me if we read our policy it's there's going to be language in there to that effect it would be I mean What language can you clarify that well so if the if the League's policy says you need to I know they have guidelines in here and so I actually couldn't get on there cuz my internet didn't come back to life until I was just ready to come here um but if the League's recommendations are that you should you know do a do a visual inspection and a um you know jet clean it out every however often and if you don't then you might incur a higher deductible or a higher whatever I mean it they you would there would be some language than that it just seems to me that we're drawing that we might be making some conclusions that isn't really based on any fact it's just kind of like well if we follow their guidelines they're going to be nicer to us yeah I I understand where you're coming from and Those portions of that were more or less copied and pasted from the League's website but we could contact them to see if they have any indications of what those cost reductions or increases could be well and the reason I'm saying that too is because again I'm not I'm not in opposition I to doing it this you know doing it now but as you set a policy and decide you're going to do this every 5 years or 4 years or 6 years or whatever I mean we're we are so much smaller than inoa and we are so much smaller than line of lakes and I would I would guess that there must be some uh numbers of users or numbers of gallons or numbers of something that that guides sort of how often something like this should be done or the types of users like if there's a lot of commercial users like you said that you know dumping grease and other things down there versus residential or a lot of Apartments I think I think what we find out in this first thing would determine what the schedule would be and there are probably some areas you know that have limited users on them there's other ways to do some visual inspections that's like to go out take go out at night say around 2:00 in the morning open some manhole covers just to see what the flows are there's no flows then you're probably in pretty good shape but I think the inspection the initial inspection would determine what the maintenance schedule would be going forward okay like I kind of said once we go through this the first time we'll have an idea of you know North Hornsby there's you you have uh a coffee shop there how much use is there not very much do we need to do that one every six years I don't know I mean we don't we don't know right now right I will also tell you that we do not have an adopted sewer policy so you'll be seeing that come through now that we're going to start this plan so I wrote one a few years ago we've updated it um I gave a copy to Jack so between him and public works and I will we you know yeah firm it up and then you know you'll be seeing that here in the next month or and that draft was included in your packet like that's the one that can be updated once we get the data if we do this from that then that will kind of determine what our schedule's going to be be for the future yeah no I i' I it's great I think you know having having this spelled down is is a good thing so also as part of the packet there's I think there's four maps in there and they kind of have it's kind of broke up into sections I might have to tweak those sections a little bit but um it's kind of it's it's in quadrants you know what I mean um they all kind of feed together and they all end up going to the same place place so you know it might not be as easy as doing it in that in that um it might not be as easy as those Maps say for future but I think I think once we do it the first time we're going to be able to go through and say this is not a very highly used spot we don't need to do this one that often so um I think the language changes a little bit in the policy that says you know we're going to do it this often or as as needed type of scenario hey Jim with that uh deal over there by money paw would that camera picked that up I don't know if the camera would have picked that up but I believe um depending on where it breaks you'll see gravel in the sewer line in the sewer line so if it breaks further away you may not but if it breaks closer to the main then you will has that been repaired or is it still it was yeah they so when muddy paw was hooking up that contractor repaired it right right there so um we were we were looking at it and we're like something something's wrong here you know what I mean so then um they ended up digging down a little bit further and seeing that the pipe was collapsed and then you know made the repairs and you know everything's everything is good today but and one more thing about this is that a big portion of this too is to identify our inflow infiltration which that's what that II acronym is and since most of our lines are probably underwater as far as the water table goes it's very important to keep up with that we may find out that there's some gaskets that weren't properly sealed or pinched and don't seal good or emitting water at the joints around manholes that may be contributed to significantly air flow and we don't need to be paying for clean water to be treated so do you need a motion or a yes and and the I apologize the motion wasn't included in your packet but I can read the motion if you'd like that I'd like to have you consider and that motion would be to approve the contract proposal from visu sewer in the amount of $61,000 for sewer cleaning inspection and to direct staff to prepare a policy for system inspection and cleaning compliant with the league of Minnesota City's recommended requirements so moved is there a second Ron I'll second it any other questions or discussion I'll call for the vote Ron I sue I Janet I Rob I Jesse I thank you anything else Joe no that's it City administrator uh I F first have a couple things one of them we mentioned earlier about calling for a joint meeting with the Planning Commission or the park board for August the 14th at 5:00 p.m before our regular scheduled meeting at 6:00 p.m. is that a desire for Council to pass on to the park board yeah I'm good with that I'm good all right the other thing I want to remind everybody of is if anybody wants to go to the local government officials meeting which is July 31st I need to send an RSVP in by tomorrow evening so if you want to go let me know and I'll take care of that also I want to remind everybody too that we're having still absentee balloting and we will this will be the last time we'll get to make this announcement before the public but City Hall will be open on August the 11th August the 10th from 10: to 5: on Saturday for or 10: to 3 on Saturday for anybody that NE wants to come in and vote on the weekend and City Hall will also be open the Monday before the election until 5:00 for that voting also and the other thing that I have on this is that Mrs Shannon hosel appeared before us at the public forum they're requesting us to approve resolution 202 24-5 which is at your seat for the raffle which will be conducted at Running Aces on August the 1st and I would request your approval on that resolution yeah I can make want me to make the motion this is Rob I I move to approve resolution 20-05 authorizing the Minnesota lady slipper pheasants forever chapter number 07772 to conduct a raffle at 15201 Ry NES Boulevard and you just need to correct you said 20-05 it's 24-5 all right 24-5 Ron I'll second it's moved and seconded any more question I'll step in for Jesse step do the any any more discussion let's do a vote Ron I sue I Janet I Rob I Jesse I perfect and the last thing under City administrative report is we will review the monthly financial report and Cheryl will give that to you now so the financial report was included in your packet um this is something you know we created we started last month we will continue to do for you um we are on track uh with uh most areas I did want to point out public work Works um if you notice their expenditures are quite large um but I wanted to point out that the $300,000 payment that we made um to an NOA County uh we'd already received that $300,000 in funding back in 2021 for some reason there was a lengthy delay in them sending that bill to us so we did pay that out of this year um so it may look like Public Works um expenditures are exceeding their budget but just keep in mind there's that $300,000 payment um that we've already see received the revenue for it wasn't in Jim's budget um so that can skew his numbers a little bit thank you did anybody have any questions any specific questions on any items so I I just have a question on that so um so it's it's over because we paid that $300,000 but we received the invoice in 2021 no we received the funds in 2021 and then um there was a delay and them actually invoicing us for the final part of that project we just received the invoice this year I didn't think we received the funds I thought that was part of the problem before no when we uh it happened so long ago that we didn't know if we did or not so that was that was kind of The Catch 22 so and I can't see 2021 anymore in our financial system um so I reached out to a couple of very nice gentlemen at the state and they did some digging for me um and they provided me with the um payment advice through the Swift system and through that I was able to backtrack through our system and actually verify that we did receive the funds thank you for doing that and then the second question is where are we with getting things figured out with animal control we had another bill that had three or four impoundments uh which had to be paid by the city uh our last conversation with them was that uh they were building a new facility and we haven't had any conversations with them since then what our Hope was was that was an anomaly but since it's not an anomaly and appears to be a pattern now we will open the conversation up with them to see what we can do to less than that the last ones though fit into what their contract said it was their cost for picking these up and we don't really have any means of control over that so well yeah and I get that but I think what we had talked about was um figuring out a process to go back and charge the owner of the animal I mean so they're picking up the animal then we know who owns it and I don't know what the legalities of that are maybe you can you can speak to that but it seems to me that you know that there should be a process established that then we can try to recover those costs from the O the dog dog owners correct me if I'm wrong Cheryl but in these cases the dogs were picked up the owner was not identified nobody came to pick the dog up so in some cases like this there will be those situations where we will not know who the owner is I and I get that but I thought that was like one out of all of them that were there cuz they say recovered so it means that somebody came and picked up the dog they didn't pick they didn't pay because they weren't asked to pay because Humane Society is not collecting dollars that way no so the charges that we're getting from Brit are just her charges they have nothing to do with the Humane Society right so we need around and Bill those back to the people who own the dogs and she was going to send us the the names of who those people were so where are we with that we we haven't received anything back from her but we will make a point to reopen that conversation and then how do you do that bill do you just send them an invoice or do you have to have a policy that backs that up or what do we have to have in place so that we can legally go back and assess them I think the best and clearest way would be a simple ordinance Amendment okay um we can we can figure out where that would be because then we then we are indicating that the city has adopted a not only a policy but a a legal requirement that they be responsible for those costs okay we can add that to a list of our ordinances to tackle um the only one I have a question on is Emergency Management M so that one is also um different uh the Emergency Management um that's where any covid or arpa funds came from so we had the um pre-development covid Grant through an NOA County um we were doing some work with the Northwest quad and so originally our Co and arpa money went into 142 which is Public Safety so I am continuing to put money into 142 and pay money out so the uh$ 13,000 I think it was $800 that we spent on the um assessing and there was a delineation we've already gotten that money back from monoka County okay thank you any other questions anyone nope anything else for us Cheryl nope that's it Janet uh Planning Commission I already did so I there's a report in your packet on page 47 um as I mentioned earlier I there really there was no action taken it was they were reviewing a list of ordinances that were scheduled to be updated and um and they also talked about two um chapters of the city code that uh require some housekeeping changes and the Planning Commission agreed with the recommended staff changes and so they they did call for a public hearing which I don't know if it's been scheduled or not yet but that was really that was pretty much all the all of the action at the Planning Commission thank you and so on to letter e uh announcements and reminders absentee voting June 28th through August 12th City Hall offices city council candidate filing July 30th through the 13th Public Works committee meeting July 31st at 5:00 p.m. city council Workshop meeting August 5th at 6 at 6 night to un night is August 6 plan commission city council meeting August 7th primary election day is August 13th 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. and our next city council meeting is August 14th 2024 at 6: p.m. and now we're going to the council will have a uh closed meeting to consider offers to purchase a city-owned real estate property identified as P 2432 2212 00005 and P 2432 221006 pursuant to the Minnesota statutes section 13d 05 subdivision 3C three [Music]