[Music] Good evening everyone. We're going to call to order the City Council of Columbus monthly meeting September 10th, 2025. The time is 6:00 p.m. And uh the first item on the list is a pledge of allegiance. If you everybody will take their hats off. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Item number three on the agenda is the adoption of the agenda. Anybody like to make a motion? >> So, this is Janet. I move to approve the adoption of the September 10th, 2025 agenda with the additions of item B3 and B4. >> Scott, I'll second. We got a motion on the floor. It's been seconded. Any other discussion or questions? Hearing none, we'll call for a vote. Jenny, >> Jenny, I. >> Scott, I. >> Janet, I. >> Rob I. >> And Ron, I. We'll go on to item number B, consent agenda. Uh, anybody want to make a motion on this one or is anybody want to make a statement on item number three? >> This is Scott. I I think reluctantly and with the understanding that she deserves uh her retirement, I I reluctantly uh would agree to that. >> Okay. Well, let's do the motion and then we can all talk about >> Okay. >> how how we feel about >> Okay. >> Lori retiring. So, this is Janet. I would move to approve the September 10th, 2025 consent agenda. >> This is Jenny. I second. >> Motion on the floor. It's been seconded. We'll take a vote on any discussion. Any questions? Having none? Jenny. >> Jenny I. >> Scott I. >> Janet I. >> Rob I. >> And Ron I. Now we'll go to item number three which you want to do a comment on. Now we can do a comment. Well, I'm just going to what's written here. Okay. Just so the public knows on consent. And Lori Spangler, our deputy clerk, submitted her notice of retirement on September 4th, 2025. Her retirement will be effective December 23rd, 2025. Lori will be working regular hours in the office until October 31st, 2025, and then as an assistant is assistance as needed until her last day of December 23rd. Gloria has worked 16 years for the city of Columbus. During this time, she has had an exemplary employee and set a standard of excellence in the performance of her duties. The residents of the city of Columbus, city councils, and city staffs have been blessed with her the opportunity to have been served by and to have served with her. She will be missed. The city of the Columbus city council and staff are grateful for all of Lori has done. wish her all the best and hope that retirement will bring her as much pleasure as she brought to our workplace every day of her career. City council is requested to accept the notice of retirement of Lorie Spangler and authorize the staff to advertise for applications for this position by Thursday, September 11th, 2025. I guess I can't say anything more than uh she she's been a top-notch employee and she worked through a lot of mess to get to where we are today. So, and there was a lot of mess. So, I we're going to miss her and it'll be hard to find someone to replace her. And uh sad note and uh I wish her the best. So, I would I would second that. She's been the public face of Columbus for 16 years, and we couldn't have asked for a better one. So, yeah, she will be very much missed, but I'm super happy for her. She will love being retired. >> Anybody else? >> Yeah, this Rob. I'd just say that's it's too soon, but uh she she needs to enjoy her retirement, right? uh she was a huge asset uh to the city and working with her for the last 5 years and uh if if the administrator wasn't around she always had the answer or could get the answer from someone. So uh she's a crucial part of the team and it's going to be missed. So but uh happy retirement. >> Yes. And I've had the fortunate opportunity over these last several months to work with her uh and Lynn on FallFest um and everyone over here as well. And I mean, I can't thank her enough for um her organization and everything she brings to every team she's a part of. So, I think we all feel the same. So, thank you, Lori, for everything you've done. >> I think I got mine in. >> Oh, okay. I I >> Thanks. >> I you know, she's one uh person that I think everybody in Columbus knows. >> You know, we come and go, but she'll go down in history as employee that everybody knew. Oh, thank you, Lori. We'll go on to uh item number C, presentations, public forum. Is there anybody out there that would like to step up and make a comment to the council? And we and Lynn Carver, you'll have to say your whole name. >> So, Lynn Carver Quinn, 7540, 152nd Lane Northeast. Um, good evening, mayor and council members. The 10-day countdown to Balf Fest started yesterday. Just to let you know, um, we had a meeting. We're all getting very excited. I'd love like to give you an update on what you can expect. And let me tell you how you can get your hands on one of these awesome t-shirts with the new logo on it. First off, thank you for supporting Fall Fest again this year. Um, we've been working really hard and we will have the biggest fall fest that Columbus has had. We set the bar pretty high for next year, but you should always, like Jack said, you should always build year after year. Um, first I would like to thank our executive committee, Jack, Aaron, Lorie, who has been just Fallest. She the glue that keeps us all together. um and my co-chair Jenny and Gina with the Lions. We've had an amazing committee. We've all worked well. Um even when we have big ideas, it's like wait, save that for next year. So, it we've all worked really well. Also, a huge thank you to our business sponsors who make this event happen. And I'm going to read them because without their support, this wouldn't happen. and we had our biggest year ever with business support. So we have Running Aces, uh, Rideback Companies, Forest River RV Camping World, Batuminous, uh, Davy Tree Experts, KI Auto, Blaine Brothers, Dave's Hydroac, Mest Brothers, Westmore Fluid Solutions, Viking Industrial, Waldocks, Olsen Sewer, Semstone, Blaze Credit Union, Bolton and Mink, uh, Blake Weld Drilling, and Lurin and Hoffman. men. So, if you see them or know them, next time you see them, thank them for sponsoring Belf Fest. Um, and I put little cards by all of your spots. As you can see, these have been distributed around. Lo's had them on their counter before the holiday weekend. Um, so they have been out. They went home with every school child at uh Columbus Elementary today. So, we're really excited that we added that and got those out there. Um, so here's what you can expect for the weekend. Friday, join us at Running Aces, enjoy the races, and then you can go watch the Goonies. And then look out because Saturday, the ninjas are coming. The kids are going to enjoy Ninja Anywhere. We have a full day of demonstrations, vendor show, car show, petting zoo, games, exhibits. Um, I just want to give a shout out to Davey's Tree Service. They donated a tree and they prepped the land and they're going to do a demonstration on how to properly plant a tree. So, I was very excited that a new business in our community stepped up and offered um that. And then I want to make aware so the Columbus PTO is being um very involved this year. They're going to sell race packets outside of running aces. They're trying to raise 400,000 for new playground equipment. So, they are going to be in the vendor area giving out these shirts to kids and they're going to have fabric markers and they're going to let the kids decorate them and they're going to ask for a free will donation. Um, and the shirts were donated to them. So, it's going to be a fundraiser for their playground equipment as well as the race packets at Running Aces. So, it's really exciting to work with them as well and help each other in the community. The Lion's Beer Tent or Beer Garden will be available right next to the tent with the stage cuz we're going to finish the Saturday off with Rocking to the Rocking Hollywoods. Um, very excited about that. They were at Arts in the Park. They announced it three times. um it's on their website, so I'm really expecting um a big crowd because they bring a big following. Um now, as promised, how you can get one of these t-shirts for anybody here or online, all what you have to do is sign up to volunteer and we'll give you a t-shirt. So, the first ones, I believe, with the new logo going out and just north enough, exit 129 on the back just for our mayor. So, um that's how you can get a t-shirt. Again, thanks for supporting FallFest and we look forward to uh seeing you at the races on Saturday and then Sunday, worship in the park with Crossroads Church and Pancake Breakfast with the Lions. So, thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you, L. >> You appreciate your help. >> This is Jenny make a comment. We tried really really hard to uh focus on our new city logo with all of the uh different donations. So hopefully our council is excited about all of that. So our residents were excited for the uh the new logo to be seen. >> Well, great. Looks good. Looks like we're going to have a great time. >> And Aaron's promise the weather is going to be great. >> Well, the responsibility is his that no wind Aaron >> or lightning. or lightning. >> Yeah. >> Uh is there anybody else in the audience? Open forum. Anybody online that would like to get up and say something? >> Having none, we'll go on to the next. We'll close the open forum. Excuse me. And we'll go on to number two, the planning commission. Um uh planning commission city council joint work meeting page four. Did I just read this Jack motion? >> Either I can read you want me to read the little description, the report on it. >> Okay. >> City staff is recommending that a joint meeting of the planning commission and city council be held in place of the regularly scheduled planning commission meeting on October 1st, 2025. The purpose of the joint meeting will be to align the goals and priorities of the council and planning commission regarding potential amendments to the large farm animal ordinance and to conduct a non-binding concept proposal regarding a proposed entertainment event development through a joint review of both the council and the planning commission. The intent of the discussion will be to gauge the support of the use prior to proceeding with investment of both the time required for and the cost for approval process for this type of activity. City staff is requesting that the mayor call a joint meeting with the planning commission on October 1st, 2025. >> All right. Uh I, Mayor Ron Hanigraph, move to call a joint meeting of the city council and planning commission on Wednesday, October 1st, 2025 at 6 p.m. to discuss the large animal ordinance and for a joint review of a non-binding concept proposal for potential entertainment development development project. Is there a second to the motion? >> Mr. Scott, I can second. >> We got a motion and a second on the floor. Any other discussion? Any questions? Hearing none, we'll take a vote. Jenny, >> Jenny, I, >> Scott, I, >> Janet, I, >> Rob I, >> and Ron I. We'll go on item D, consultant staff reports. Engineer, there's no report tonight. City attorney report. Bill, do you have anything? uh no report other than uh usually in the fall we remind you that the legislative session is just around the corner. So maybe in one of your future workshops we can sit down look at you know what's happened over a number of years and determine whether you want to be active again in the session. I always say you're the little engine that could because you know many cities your size don't avail themselves of that process but we've had some success in recent years maybe less success. So, it'll be a nice opportunity well ahead of the session to have uh some input from council and maybe um invite some of our delegation back in um and talk about some of the priorities. As soon as that starting bell hits, it's a lot harder to get attention of everybody. So, just a reminder. >> That's a good idea. Thank you, Bill. So great minds must think alike because we just talked about this yesterday and uh decided that we would uh try to shoot for the October workshop. >> Okay. >> So >> and invite Senator Kun and Representative West. >> I'll I'll let Margaret know you're thinking about her. >> We are always. >> Thank you. >> We're on item number three. Uh the mayor and city council's report. Jenny. >> Um, not too much to report. I think Lynn covered quite a bit with Fall Fest. The only thing I'll add to that is that we did have an update with the sheriff's department. We are um just updating that we are not planning a detour for Fall Fest on Saturday at the park. Uh we do have a lot of sheriff's uh you know county sheriff has really uh stepped up and and offered to give us some additional volunteer reserves uh and police explorers to help with um traffic control. So, we'll have that and some extra signage as well. Um and we have the map updated. Um and that will show some additional parking on the north side of the um public works building. We'll have a whole lot over there as well because we're not doing um any kind of shuttles from the church this year. We're um trying to um make for some additional space beyond that. Um uh Concrete had their wershed meeting on Monday 98. Nothing too much to report beyond some um budget updates and things that way, but nothing um so far that I can note for Columbus. >> Okay. There's going to be parking in the park then too. >> Parking in the park. Um yeah, both parking uh park lots as well as um just to the north side of uh the public works building, that whole open field. >> Oh, okay. So, we'll hopefully have enough space for everyone and anticipating a little bit because the Rock and Hollywoods when I was at uh the state fair, they noted uh Columbus Ball Fest at the state fair and then they noted it three times at Force Lake um Arts in the Park, so we're a little nervous. We've gotten some phone calls. So, >> Wow. Well, that's great. That's great. Scott, do you have anything? >> Uh thank you, mayor. No report from me, >> Janet. Um so there was a Sunrise um river WMO meeting on the uh 4th. Um so last Thursday um there are two items that we talked about. One was a grant um that I may have mentioned before. It's a shoreline stabilization grant. There are seven properties on three different lakes that are going to um benefit from this. Two are on um Lake. So that's sort of exciting. and um the money was coming from the uh uh WBIF funds. And then the other thing we talked about was a ditch 13 um management report. So this is a ditch that's in Icanti County, but the runoff of it really impacts um all of the Sunrise River WO and also the the St. Croy River. So it's it's important. There's some uh there's a study that was done. We're going to add the study to our work plan. So, you're going to see that coming up for our approval sometime in the next couple of months and then it will get submitted to Bowser so that any um potential funding that comes up that will pay for some of the projects that are described in that study um that those projects would be eligible for for state funding. So, just a heads up that that'll that'll be coming. And uh that's pretty much it from Sunrise. >> Thank you, Rob. >> Uh no report. I'll touch on a couple topics. uh under the planning commission and I'd left my notes at home. Jack's going to help me uh with that. So, >> okay. The the major topics at the planning commission were >> I think we're down a little ways yet. >> Okay. I'm sorry. >> I'm too excited about talking about it. >> Yeah. Fun stuff. >> Uh I just have one item today. Hey, I just want to let everybody know that I met with the seniors today uh at Running Aces for their monthly lunchon and we talked about the 24th of September when they're going to come back. Uh it looks there was probably 25 of them there. They're uh very happy to uh come back. Uh I don't know how many are going to show up, but we're going to try it and get it going and see what happens. and they were very receptive and looking forward to coming back to Columbus. So, other than that, we'll go on to the next item. >> Are you going to mention your uh meet the mayor after? Are you going to mention the meet the mayor after the pancake breakfast? >> Well, it'll be >> always a highlight. >> Somebody did bring that up, you know, but uh and and I'm going to bring it up right now. We might as well. We got it on the table. Uh, we're going to do that after the pancake breakfast as usual as we started last year. Was it successful? I don't know. We talked to a number of people. Sometimes you get three or four and it's funny. The three or four could be from another city, but but I we did talk to people from Columbus and I think it's good to have the door open. I also want to open it up for the council members that let me know what date you would like to do it and it's just nice to have two of us in there because I don't know everything and it's nice to have more eyes and on the subjects. Uh the next thing on the idea uh on the thing is the EDA. Number four, there's no report. The parks board, there's no report. Number five, number six, the personnel committee rep report. Janet, >> uh there is no report. >> No. No. Okay. Planning Commission report. >> Yep. Thank you. Uh thank you, Ron. And like I said, uh Jackson helped me out with this uh for what I missed, but uh the gist of the meeting was uh conversation around uh high fencing. Um, current ordinance, I believe, states 6-foot fencing, right? Um, so there's been some inquiries about folks wanting to have higher fences along uh uh roads that there's more traffic and things of that nature. I'd shared some past things previous to when I was on council and campaigning along people putting corrugated metal up and light reflecting off it back into their house and uh multiple different issues we've ran into with similar high fencing and that we actually probably should look into it uh more deep and uh figure out what kind of design standard we want to have on those residential type fencing. Um, and then the other topic was uh education around uh what I guess would call farm and poultry uh animals uh in rural residential um and kind of the uh guidelines along that. But Jack, if you could help me out with anything I missed outside of that was a fairly quick meeting. >> I think it was a good summary, Rob, and the it started out with the farm animals. It did morph into the issue about fencing too, which there are several items in our ordinance that we need to look at and address because there were more questions than there were answers. So, uh, I think it was a very good discussion with the commission and Lori on the fencing issue and then she was able to brief them some on this large farm animal consideration that we may go down the road and take a look at that. So, that was the gist of the meeting and it was a good discussion. Thank you. That's it. Uh we'll go on. There's no p number item number eight, public works report. There's none. Now we'll go to item number nine, Jack, city administrators report. Uh what I would like to do, we'll have our budget discussion here in a little bit. Uh, I would request though that we call a special meeting for Monday, September the 15th to finish up the capital improvements plan portion of the budget. Once we have that done and get most everything done tonight, we'll be able to assemble it all. Then on the 24th, so we'll have a completed preliminary 2026 draft budget. And with that, I would recommend that the mayor call a special meeting for September 15th at 5:30 p.m. to discuss the capital improvement plan and any other outstanding issues on the 2026 preliminary budget. >> So I'll make a motion here. I Ron Hannigraph call special meeting for the purpose of discussion of 2026 city budget and capital improvement plan for September 15th, 2025 at 5:30 p.m. Is there a second? >> This is Janet. I second. >> We have a motion on the floor seconded. Any discussion from the council? Any questions? >> This is Jenny. I may need to join remotely. That may be my only hiccup with that would be that I would join remotely that night. Is that okay? No. >> Any other discussion? >> We'll call for a vote. >> Jenny Jenny I. >> Scott I. >> Janet I. >> Rob I. >> Ron I. Jack. Item B. Uh the in Noa County election integrity team has made several presentations to the city council regarding the use of poll pads and they have requested city council to use paper rosters in l of poll pads for processing voters and election day registrations. As a result of the ASET presentation and council discussions of the September 2nd, 2025 city council workshop, uh it would be a staff recommendation to make a motion to approve the continuation of the use of poll pads for processing voters and election day registrations for primary and general elections for the city of Columbus. >> So, somebody want to read this motion or you want me to take it? I can take it. As a result of the ASET's presentation and the council's discussion at the September 2nd, 2025 city council workshop meeting, I Ron Hannigraph, move to approve the continuation of the use of polls for processing processing voters and election day registrations for primary and general elections for the city of Columbus. Is there a second? >> Um, this is Janet. I'll second. >> We got a motion on the floor. It's been seconded. Any discussion on this issue? >> Any questions? >> No. Yeah, this is Rob. So, question. We're just going to keep as is as we've been doing. Correct. >> Okay, I'm good with that. >> Okay. Uh, so we have any other questions? Having none, we'll go for a vote and we're going to do something different this time. Rob, you go first. >> Rob I. >> Janet I. >> Scott I. >> Jenny I. and Ryan I. >> Switching up. >> The motion passes. Uh item number C, Jack. >> Item number C is the 2026 budget discussion. Uh the third draft of the 2026 preliminary budget will be discussed at our meeting tonight. The current proposal for the 2026 preliminary budget levy is $4,985,747. Uh before I go on though, there is an amended report that is at your seat. Uh there were several changes made over the weekend and today to get this current, but this is the report that I'm reading from. It's an update of the one that's in your packet. Budgets for 2024 and 2025 are absent of any general levy increases and are a factor for the increased cost for the 2020. >> Dad, can you speak? I I can't hear you over here. Sorry. Just closer to the mic. budgets for 2024 and 2025 were absent of any general levy increases and are a factor for the increased cost for the 2026 budget. In addition, the 2026 budget was encumbered by $132,000 of additional cost and go bond payments and fire and law enforcement contracts. The city is bound by the bond amortization schedules and agreements with the Noga County and the city of Forest Lake for cost of outsourcing public safety services cost in the amount of $40,000 to partially restore capital fund 407 has been included in the draft 2026 preliminary budget with the balance to be considered in the 2027 budget discussions. Reduction of capital fund transfers were used to address the 2025 levy. is recommended that these capital fund accounts be made whole by 2027 and additional allocations of $35,000 for the 27 budget will be included in that discussion. The proposed preliminary general fund expenditures for 2026 are $4,985,747 and this includes the EDA levy of $88,650. This would be an increase of $137,743 over the 2025 total of $4,848,04. When the projected non-levy revenues are removed from the total of the 2026 general fund cost, the percent levy increase for this year would stand at 3.5%. A surplus in our public safety funds of $240,000 is available that could be applied to this budget. However, the recommended use for these monies would be for an NOA County Highway Department matching dollars required for the Ptoic Street and Lake Kettle Drive River projects in 2027 and the comprehensive plan update in 2028. The $240,000 is the approximate cost of the city share of these projects. Use of these funds for projects is a one-time cost and eliminates the recurring revenue gap when these monies are used for general fund budget reductions. The only outstanding expenses yet to be verified are the amortization schedule for the 401 public works equipment replacement and the final amount for the 2026 employee wages. The county and city's HAS are separate levies and water and sewer enterprise counts are funded by user fees with neither being a part of the general fund budget. As the city is part of the county HR program, it is recommended the city's independent HR levy be reduced from $120,000 in 2025 to an amount between 0 to $5,000 for 2026. While this would not affect the general fund levy, it would lower a special city tax levy to an equivalent of a 2.9% levy reduction. And this would be in addition to the 3.5% calculation above. So the net of those would reduce our levy cost to around 1%. The city 20 26 preliminary budget must be submitted to the ina county property records and taxation department by September 30th, 2025. and the final city 2026 budget and certification form must be submitted to the county by December 29th of 2025. So you've had some updates to the levy sheets for the dispersements on the revenue on the on the expense side. We've discussed those previously. Uh I know there was uh some discussion and some changes made. One of them was we did a cash flow on our water system and when we did that we're able to move one half of one public works employee salary over to the enterprise fund that would be Bill Karth. We also got our report from our insurance adjuster yesterday that our insurance cost for workman's comp went down $11,000 and our general liability went down too. Both of those figures have been incorporated in the worksheets that you have before you. So, [Music] I'm just going to briefly go over these. If anybody has any questions, stop me and we'll try to answer those as we go. In the first fund in this, which is general government, this fund proposed budget is down for 2026 by approximately $9,000 over what it was in 2025. Administrative expenses are down approximately $32,000 from 2026 from what they were in 2025. Under the city hall expenses on page two, that cost has gone up $500 over 2025 cost for senior center expense. That remained level. No change in what the 2025 cost was to 2026. For building inspections, that cost has gone down by approximately 64 $65,000. That's mainly due because we project less revenue coming in from development. And hopefully that will pick up in 2027 if some of these things that we're talking about from property sales come through. under contract services, uh, that amount has gone up by about $2,500 from 2025 to 2026. And under general city capital fund 407, that has gone up $47,000. And the reason for that is we took some money out of that fund last year for uh, budget purposes, and we're attempting to get that reimbured back to make it whole. So there was an additional $40,000 allocated there for that purpose and expense under public works 120. That cost has gone down approximately $23,000. That's mainly because of the transfer of a salary from this fund to the water department. And also there's another category under that too. uh that fund has gone down, excuse me, it's gone up by about $6,000. So the total cost of that fund has gone down by $17,000 from 2025 to 2026 under public works still under their shop expenses. That's almost even the fund that has decreased by a little $875 under repair and maintenance. That cost has gone down by $6,000 from 2025 to 2026 under public works capital fund 401. That fund has gone up by approximately a little over $9,000, a little less than $9,000. And that's due to the accelerator clause we use for advertisation funds for equipment replacement fund under the category 402 which is public works road maintenance capital fund. That's our road project cost. That cost has gone up $56,000 over what was allocated for 2025 under public safety. under our police fund. Uh our sheriff's law enforcement contracts went up 7.4%. So that cost is $37,000 higher than it was in 2025. Under our emergency management fund, that cost has stayed the same, $3,900 for each year. And under our fire fund, which is the contracted services that we engaged with with Forest Lake, that cost has gone up $24,000 primarily due to their intent to hire an additional staff person this year. Under our fireh hall fund, which is basically money that we have in there for making sure that uh we have utilities for that, that fund has gone up. That's gone up $1,800 mainly due to increased gas costs. Fireh hall capital fund is proposed to go up by about $1,000. Our fire equipment vehicle capital fund is proposed to increase from last year, which was reduced as part of the stuff for the budget addressing for 2025, will be $6,000 higher than 2025, but $13,000 lower than it was in 2024. So overall, no, excuse me, it'll be $7,000 higher. 2024 was a different year. under our public works park fund. We've made some recommendation and changes there. The biggest is that we now take over and do the maintenance of the park. What we're proposing there is to hire two seasonal employees in 2026 to help out with some of that maintenance and take that money that was used for the payment of contracted services and mowing, which is $37,500, and allocate $25,000 of that to the parks capital fund. So, they'll have a little bit more income to start addressing future projects. take 6,500 of that and put in the park's capital asset fund to start paying and set up the account for replacement eventually of the mower and retaining $6,000 in there for contracted services. So all in all, the cost of that fund would go down from 55,800 to 42,450. Again though, public works will be still be picking up some of that maintenance cost, which they've done in this year's budget, and they have the capacity to do some of it, but they do need some additional help, and that's what the proposal for the seasonals would be. >> Do you want questions now or at the end? >> Whatever you want to ask him. Just >> Oh, just kind of curious about the replacement of the mower. So, are we we're planning ahead for future? I mean, the thing's brand new, right? >> That's correct. We're just going to start setting aside correct increments for when we need to. Okay. Thank you. >> Under our charitable gambling fund, uh all the funds we collect there are just more pass through funds. Uh so that's not expensed out on anything. It's a wash and has been for a number of years. As you can see in these uh charts un under the sunrise river WMO fund, we've reduced that from 19,580 to 15,000. Uh currently the dues we pay or what we pay to be a part of that organization is approximately 10,200. 3,800 of that is left over in case there's any engineering reviews that have to be done. in the thousands left over for salaries or meeting cost for that organization. Under the city bond funds that actually increased by 71,000 over the three different bonds and that's just because of the way the advertisation schedule is written. Last year was a reduction of close to uh well for 20 2023 it was 801. It went down to 586 and up to 602. So those are never consistent. So that was the reason for the increase. It's just the way the advertisation schedule is written out. Under our water fund 401, which is an enterprise fund, and it's not a general fund levy item, uh we're projecting our costs are going to increase one to 168. In 2025 is 117, but we moved additional salary over here. So that takes it off the general fund account. We're also projecting for 2025 water sales of $174,000 which will cover that. But also MTW will go online and we should probably get an additional 25 to $30,000 revenue from them next year. And at this time hopefully we can look at maybe getting that rest of that employee one full FTE over on that account. The sewer is the same way. It's a user fee based funded part of our budget. So, we're looking at expenses going up of a of about $10,000 in that, but that will be covered by the additional use and hopefully we'll get starting to get that gap up to where we can get another person or part of their salary transferred over to that also. So the summary report is the total general fund expenditures reviewed here are 4,897,97. Water and sewer costs are $313581. The EDA budget is $88,652 and the total of all those is 5 million $299,328. And if we use reduce our city HR fund by $115,000, the total amount spent will be $5,34,000. 5,34,328. So, uh, you can see over those numbers, that's just $80,000 over what we did last year. I think with the increased costs we had going in, I mean, essentially the just basically the ones from the bond fee cost, the additional fire and and police cost. I think this is we've done pretty well. Again, if we do this the way we figure what the levy increase is, we take that first figure where it says total 4897097 and we add the EDA budget to that. We also have projected $66,000 in non city le levy revenues and you subtract that number from those two additions and then that number is what the general fund levy would be and it's about $140,000 higher than last year's which was $4,231,55. So that's how we come with the general levy fund increase of 3.5% based on what we've given here. But also too if you take that HR closing that account essentially out then that would represent up to a 2.9% decrease. The only difference is it's shown in a different part of the tax statement. It's shown under special assessments. Some people don't realize that that's $115,000 less taxes that have to be paid in the city of Columbus. So with that, I'm we're open to any questions you may have regarding any of these line items. You did that pretty fast. Um I have a few if it's all right to start start asking. Um, I want to make sure I understand cuz the the sheet that you just handed us did not have the um carry forwards or the deficits that we had in the other sheets, which I found really, really helpful. So, I'm sitting here with two of them trying to compare line by line um because I put I put my notes on I don't know on one of these versions. Um, but for Cheryl, I just want to ask the question. So the the version that I'm looking at now says current version as of September 4th, 2025. And it has that column on the far right hand corner that we had requested that would show on a line item, you know, how what the difference was between what was actual and budgeted. Okay. So there's some black numbers and there's some red numbers. The red numbers are we budgeted less than we actually spent and the red and the black numbers are the opposite of that. I'm assuming since it's it's we're legally required to have a balanced budget that any of the red numbers got balanced out with other funds one way or the other. So, is it correct to look at the black numbers and say maybe there's not exact I know that you don't do your accounting in the sense that each one of these lines has a carry forward balance, but to the best of our ability, I mean, so could we could we assume that the the black numbers are are truly carry forward balances? And the reason I'm asking that is I know that you've made some adjustments, which I really appreciate. you guys did a lot of a lot of work since the last time we we met. But I'm thinking there's still areas that um so for instance, if we just look at election expenses and we have $14,000, but it said that there's $6,000 that we had budgeted pre in previous years that we didn't spend. So since we've never spent $14,000 on an election, we've come close, but we haven't spent 14,000 and we have 6,000. Would it be reasonable to assume that that's a number that could get knocked down some? And I think there's several examples like that where I would really like to if it's a if it's a legitimate assumption go through and kind of make some of those um adjustments. I think that I totally understand like for the bond funds and the enterprise funds you got to have that that extra dollar those extra dollars. So I wouldn't obviously do that in that case. I don't know if there's a carry forward in the sunrise fund, but if there was, then maybe we could even reduce that further. So, I'm just asking is that am I am I thinking about this correctly or am I missing something? So, we went back four years um to try to track to see where we were under and over. I would say you could use it as a guide, but normally I try to give you numbers that are 100% accurate. There will be variance in this because it was not being tracked like this before. >> So I would say in some line items you could reduce it, but I would be very cautious because I'm only able to give you 4 years worth. So in 2020 I'm, you know, we could have over spent again. So the numbers that I plugged into this sheet for you are 100% accurate. However, those carry forwards. I'm only able to go back four years to look for you. Um, I can go back further, but then that means I'm pulling all of the paper books and that's it would probably take me, I'm guessing, a month >> if you want me to go back seven years or something to get it more accurate. This is just what we have sitting in our system, the actual numbers that I can see for you. >> Um, so I would say you could use it as a guide. Um, but I would say give yourself some leeway. You know, if it's showing, you know, a $6,000 carry forward, um, I'm a cautious person. I would say we should probably say 50% um, to be accurate. Um, >> or not accurate, but to be, you know, closer. Yes. So, um, do not set, uh, do not look at these like they are set in stone. This is my best um compilation of numbers that I could get for you >> because normally we carry forward fund 100, right? >> It's not broken out by line. It's that fund and it's that cash balance sheet that we reviewed at our workshop meeting. >> So in fund 100 that's all rolled together. So it has never been broken out line by line before for the city. So, I would just want to be really cautious, you know, as we progress, maybe 3 years, 5 years down the road, and if this is how you want us to track it, as the years go by, of course, we would be more accurate. Um, but I would just be cautious. So, what I'm thinking is that for line items where they're not, I guess what I'd say mission critical, >> um, I'll give you another example. So seminars and education, I mean the last four years we've spent less than well on average less than $1,000, right? And we're budgeting $4,500 and according to this sheet, if I read the lines right, there's $10,800. >> Yes. Because we weren't allowed. >> No, I know that Lindsay and I are looking forward to going to a conference. And I know uh Ellie is looking at some training. So we would really like to attend the trainings, join the organizations um and kind of put ourselves out there. It would be good networking for us. I know there are some certifications that we could be working on for city staff um now that that is um encouraged by our city administrator. So I know in prior years there was some budgeting. However, that budgeting was only allocated to one person. No. >> So um we as a city staff are really looking forward to some conferences, some trainings and and I'm not suggesting that we not do that, but just to your suggestion, there's 10,800 left approximately forward. If you take half of that, it's over $5,000. you could wipe out that4500, still pay for what you think you're going to use for that and have $5,000 in reserve. And I'm just saying that like there's several lines like that. >> Um I I think that we could reduce this even further if we were careful about which ones we would do that and and using your 50% sort of as a guide and also using nothing that's mission critical because we don't want to mess with that. I mean, we could probably shave another, I don't know, 50 $60,000 off of this, which, you know, every dollar that we do is less that we're asking our taxpayers to pay. So, I I'm just suggesting that and I I I'm curious how other people feel about it. I know it's tedious work, but I don't know. I'm willing to do it if it's going to save taxpayer dollars. >> It's hard to fight that comment to save taxpayers dollars. Well, that's why I said it. >> I know, but I it's pretty hard to fight it. I I I think it's good to have >> I mean, >> well, I'm just saying we we we know that we have a pretty healthy cash cushion. We know that there's funds that we need to have that cash cushion, and I'm saying don't touch those. But some of these, I mean, I don't like the idea of sitting on thousands and thousands of dollars of taxpayer dollars because we don't want to go through the painful process of looking at each of these things line by line and I think the staff has done you know we can we can participate in this and I started to do that unfortunately there was so many versions I just like forget it I'm just going to wait until the meeting to get the final version to look at but it's um I don't know I think I think that you know there's some pretty healthy balances in some of these accounts and if and if you're making the assumption mention that the red ones are already they're already cashed out or balanced because we had to do that last year. We can't have a deficit. The and I don't know if you went through and looked at like you know all of the black numbers and added them up and looked at that by fund to see how close you are to what you know is left over in the fund. >> Beck and I started those calculations. >> Yeah. If if you if you have your old sheet, if you look down in the bottom line on each funds, it shows a number. >> Yep. >> Like for under the general fund 100, you go down and you see the number $25,750. That is [Applause] the difference of all those, >> right? But that's taking that's subtracting these red numbers. And I'm saying don't subtract those red numbers because those were expenses we paid last year. I only care about how much money is left over. So it's a little bit disingenuous to say, well, that's what's left over because we already we already paid those bills. So if if and I but I totally understand what what Cheryl is saying, which is this is not the way they've done their accounting. And so that her confidence in some of these numbers aren't isn't, you know, isn't great. But if she's pretty confident that 50% would be a good guideline, I think it would be useful to go through here and say, are there are there other line are there other um things that we could reduce or even eliminate because there's there appears to be plenty of cash reserve. Well, and you know, there was last year and we're working to get that down to where we're not carrying excessive funds. Uh I think we can I can put together those numbers for you for the special meeting by next Monday >> and we can go over those and uh do the capital improvements discussion also. That that one should not take that long. Well, and then that was my second question because I really liked your idea of um using the savings that we have in this in the public safety and applying that towards future road projects. What I remembered though was in noa county telling us that that PTOAC project is probably not going to happen until 2027 and they're still kind of sorting out how big it is. >> So maybe I don't know how much the difference in the public safety fund gets us towards what the cost share is on those two projects. If you take what's been told to us now, the Battoomeic one I believe was 60,000, Kettle River was 100 and if we use 80,000 for the comp plan, that pretty well approximates what if we took that out of the public safety funds, we would be at our 50% fund balance requirement in that fund. So what I'm what I'm thinking is you could do it that way or the other way is because we know that that PTOIC project's two years in the future and it could be substantially less depending on where they land with the um open house and and the land own you know the property owners concerns about what they're doing and the comp plan is also two or three years in the future. So you could put less towards that cuz you still have a year or so that you could you could consider those expenses and put money aside for it rather than trying to put all the money aside in this year. Just just a suggestion. Well, we can definitely make those looks on where we're looking at the numbers in the black on these where we've underspent what was budgeted and come up with some recommendations and ideas for you and uh that wouldn't uh I can get that taken care of and Cheryl's got her hands full of some other things and we and do that and present that to you if that's the direction you want us to go. And the the other uh what we do with what some of the cash balances we have over 50% of our fund balance requirements is we we can do we have lots of flexibility in that. The other thing too, you know, we talk about those costs could be less, but they could also be more too. >> It's just however we want to make the assumptions. But whatever whatever we do, we've got ample funds to cover those future costs that we don't have anything budgeted for right now in that overage on our fund balance. So I don't know if everybody brought their cash fund balance report back with them. So I just want to caution you. Our budget for the 100 fund for 2025 was 1.786 million. Of that, we are required to have 50% in reserves. So that means we go through a whole year until we get our property taxes in July. And as of June 30th in our general fund, we had $769,000. So we're right, you know, within our 50%. So we if we start cutting, we have to make sure I know when Jim Ike is presenting our audit, he's telling you that we have a large amount of funds, but we broke those out in the workshop. So we need to be cautious. at the end of June, we need to have 50% of our budget left over so that if there is a delay in property taxes being sent to us, we can still fund the government. We're still able to pay our bills. So just remember that cash fund balance report I gave you and then look at the total fund budget and kind of in your head be like oh so we need to have our 50% there as of June 30th and you know we can make cuts from there but we don't want to fall below that 50% threshold. Um, we're we're not allowed to. I mean, we will I will get a letter from some person at the office of the state auditor telling us we're below our 50% fund balance. Um, so I just I want to be very cautious about that. We do have the extra money in the public safety fund. You know, we have about the $250,000 extra where that would give us wiggle room. Um, I know we talked about that the last workshop. Um, >> and and do we have another property tax payment coming due still? We do. And yeah, so I mean we have enough right now that's 50% plus. We have a whole another payment coming in, >> right? But we, you know, when we're waiting till we get our property taxes in July and then we get our property taxes in December. So we get paid our twice a year. But when we're rolling around to June 30th, we still have to have 50% of our budget available to fund the city in case of >> so there are I mean we can go through and we can do line by line. um I don't have a problem you know doing that but remember to look at that end number also. [Music] So for this year tenatively you know the budget is 1.6 million. So, we have to fund our entire year and then at the end they're going to look to us to have $800,000 in that fund balance. You know, we'll go through public works the same way. um you know um and it's a little bit messy also uh the numbers because of the corrections that we had to make and the adjustments that we had to make um in and during the audit last year and then we corrected our chart of accounts so that our capital accounts were pulled out of our general fund. So, uh, it's probably going to take us realistically 3 to 5 years. 3 to 5 years from now, I will be able to tell you with the utmost certainty, 100% that we are on track. The numbers are what they are. Um, but we'll have to build um, and we can start tracking our numbers this year, but it will take time. [Music] My only other comment like on the election, the $14,000 is that there's a possibility that this year we could run into some additional election expenses. Depending on how our hire goes of that person in that position, there's a possibility that we may have to have a little extra help. Uh, >> but we don't have three elections like we did last I mean there's >> I'm not talking about election judges. I'm talking about making sure that whoever we hire. The main goal on that is making sure that they can run the election. In the event that they're a little short, we may have to hire somebody temporarily to work the August and the November election with them. We don't know that yet, but we're hoping that we don't have to do that. But again, in the 14,000, you know, that's what we almost spent in the last the 2024 election. However, the 2024 election had three elections and not two, >> right? >> So, this is in here right now. It's just u kind of a essentially it's a placeholder with a little cushion in there to cover some unanticipated cost. >> Yeah. And and I'm looking for a compromise. So, if it's 14,000 that you're budgeting and that's what you think you're going to need and there's $6,000 carry forward, maybe you drop it to $1,100 or $11,000 and take half of that carry forward. That's all. I mean, and I think if you go through that in the in the lines that there's pretty significant carry forward and they're not, you know, elections are mission critical. So, maybe you want to even be a little bit more if you're really worried about that. I'm hoping that we're not going to find ourselves in that situation. Um, but you know, I I I I'm not I don't have any sort of target in mind. I'm just saying that I don't think we've looked at this in this way and I think there's still savings to be had if we did. >> And we we we can certainly look at it and just kind of give you a report at the special meeting. Uh, and then we can decide how far we can carry this. And keep in mind again too, even though we would like to have the preliminary budget set with a definite figure for submission to the county on the 30th, we can still work through this going on into December, too, if we have to. But our goal is to try to get it finalized for submission by the 30th of September. >> I have one other question. It has to do on the projected non-levy city revenues. Mhm. >> So, on the um lodging taxes, it said that there was 3,000 last year and you're expecting 19,000. I thought it was a way more than that. Isn't that the >> No, no, that's ex uh expenses. Where are you looking? >> No, I'm looking at No, I'm looking at the one that says revenue. So, I'm looking at the sheet that says attachment three projected non-levy city revenues. >> Oh, so that $19,000. So, we do get more than that in lodging tax. If you look at your other revenue sheet that I uh created for you, however, we have not used we have not utilized that tax before and that $19,000 lodging tax we are actually going to use to fund part of uh Aaron's salary because he's going to be doing EDA uh job duties that are eligible for us to be able to use that fund. >> That that's the 5% that we can claim for administrative cost, >> right? But I I guess what I thought this sheet was showing us was what the what our revenues were, not what we were planning to use of those revenues. So I so I I just did thought that the I thought that the revenue was much bigger than 19,000. And so that's why I'm bringing >> the the revenues could be much more for that, but they couldn't be for anything that would affect our general levy budget. They can be used for marketing and promotion of tourism. the $19,000 will be additional revenue that we don't levy for that we could apply to some of our cost. I >> I just I I get what you're saying. I just didn't realize that that was the underlying uh principles of this. I just thought this was a list of here's all of our revenues in each of these categories, not well which ones are that big revenue spreadsheet. Do you want me to print it out for you? >> No, no, I have that too. It's just that, you know, like I said, I've got three giant spreadsheets and a few small ones and to sit there and spread them out and try to figure out which one goes with which >> um without any sort of written instructions is a bit of a challenge. So, I do have that and I was looking at that compared to this, but the numbers didn't match and I didn't know why. >> Yep. So, we're only utilizing $19,000 of the lodging tax towards our expenses because that's what we're eligible to use. However, our lodging tax for last year, oh, I lost it again. Hold on one second. >> So, that so the column that says under 2026, this is this is not our revenues. This is what we plan to use of the revenues towards these these that lodging tax is the only oddball. Otherwise, most of them are going to be what we're predicting the actual revenue to be. We've just added that lodging tax this year. So last year we had $105,000 that we received in hotel tax. >> Mhm. >> Um we are under very strict uh rules on what we can utilize that for. And last year uh Aaron wasn't here yet. Um so now this year that we have Aaron and he's going to be uh taking on more of the EDA duties, we're eligible to use that 5%. So that is what we're doing here and that's why it's never been listed before. But every other revenue that's listed on your 8 1/2 by 11 sheet, it's the total that we're expecting to receive for the year. The only exception would be the lodging tax, the 19,000 because that's all that we're eligible to use. >> So it's more accurate to say it's the available revenue. >> Yes. And even even the revenue that we get from that lodging tax is not going to help this budget any at all because it can only be used for marketing and promotion of tourism. So we can't put it into another category to offset some of our other cost. So >> you're utilizing 100% of available funds of what you can. >> Yes. Anybody else? You still on the floor, Janet? >> No, I mean I can I can follow I mean I can follow up with her on some of the other questions. >> Anybody else? >> I have one question. Did we talk um was it back in maybe April, May about potentially the public works department pushing some of their dating out? Like I know you talked about potentially they were set at seven years and really they don't sell equipment for 10 or 11 and so we're holding on to some of that money. Did we talk about what that looked like with Jim? I know he's not here tonight. >> That that's what we'll talk about on money. That'll be under the capital improvements plan. >> Okay. >> But expect that to go up because a lot of the values that we had for two plow trucks, another dump truck, and two other larger trucks that'll be purchased in the next probably 5 to nine years. Well, we found out from the last bids that we got, we were $43,000 under. So, some of those values will have to go up. Some of the greater stuff may go down, but uh we'll have those numbers for you next Monday. >> Okay. Yeah. And I know that again it wasn't specifically focused on the numbers, just if that had been addressed and and added in. So, thank you. >> Yeah, Rob. >> Yeah. Thank you, mayor. Um, so under administrative uh and it's the uh city council computer/ cellphone uh be the fourth one down on that. Last last year we budgeted that 7500. Did we spend all that money and how many how many computers did we get? I thought at that point we talked about everyone on council getting one and I never received or was contacted about getting that set up. >> So we did order and we did receive your laptops. However, um our assigned IT consultant through Paragon Development Systems uh was purchased by Convergent and he left the company and so we are still waiting for those laptops to be finalized with the setup and I am working very diligently. I know you all need them and they would be very useful for you. So, they were purchased. Um however uh none of us here have the capability um >> okay >> to set them up. So we are still trying to reach out to our old consultant um he is at a different company um and he's trying to work through that um part-time um between his family obligations and his new job. So we are really we have them um we have the Microsoft licenses for you. Um, we just need to finalize the setup and hopefully I'll have an answer for you within the next week or two. >> Okay, great. And and my main concern is maybe they went went to a different department or something of that nature and that's why we didn't see them. So, I wanted to make sure we didn't need to budget or allocate extra dollars to make that dream happen. So, >> that would not happen. >> Cool. Thank you. >> Hopefully, we'll have an update for you though because I think they'll be very >> most of us got 10year-old iPads at this point >> at least. I know. >> I don't even use >> I know. We're working on it. >> Well, it's hard to type on, Scott >> and Rob. >> If that equipment was uh sent to a different department, then I would be coming before you because then that would have to be a transfer to transfer those expenses. Fair. >> But that would never happen. >> Not under sher >> at least without you knowing it. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yes, >> Jenny. >> One quick question. Is is there an update on potential IT um bids or something like that going out? >> We do. We we've actually we're going about this process probably a little bit differently because we want to get a better sense when we to send who to send RFPs out. We have interviewed uh what I'd hoped would have been a potential candidate, but they're probably going to be too expensive for us. But we have another candidate that we've interviewed that we think is a real option. Uh the costs for that are about $45,000 a year versus the other one which would be close to 60. Uh so uh we're hoping to have all that done within the next it'll be another couple of months, but we do have a strong candidate that's going to be a probably a front runner and that's going to we'll narrow that down. So, I've got the RFP drafted. So, we'll get that sent out and hopefully have that taken care of. Maybe bring something back to you by mid say the end of October for approval of a service. >> Very good. Thank you. >> Anything, Scott? >> Uh, not necessarily question, more of a statement. Um, so just at at our um um workshop, I think we started out with a 6.5 projected levy. I I just wanted to to say that it's uh been rewarding being a part of this process, working with city staff uh and the council all working together to get that down to 3.5% before it ever hit uh the public meeting here and continuing to do that that work. So, um, you know, uh, having two or is it two years or 3 years of flat levies, you know, sooner or later you're going to have to have a levy increase. >> Uh, that's just the the reality of things. But, um, the way we're working this, uh, process um, I think uh, has been, uh, uh, going very well and it's appreciated working with you all. >> Right. I I I I don't know if I want to bring this up or not, but line item, it has to do with compensation. If you look at our compensation, is this supposed to be for the personnel committee to present it to the council, Jack, our recommendation, or is this something we discussed right here? >> Well, you know, we have to decide which option we're going to do. And I think uh there was some direction given at our meeting yesterday. So the number that's in here now is the old system we placed that as a placeholder number. So >> which number are you talking about? Uh 2026 >> I'm talking about. Yeah. the on on all the numbers for administrative wages >> and there's a category and under building department for that there's some under public works all those are based under the 2025 system that we used and the reason being is that's the highest it could be so that's the placeholder number so u once we get to where we want to be with that whatever it is then we can make adjustments to that to reflect what we choose for the compensation plan going forward. >> So that's 617,000. This is line item for the council administrative wages. The 1041301000 is 617,000. Am I correct? >> Yes. >> So in uh 2025 budget we had 646,700. So we decrease our wages at So I'm trying to figure this out. So in other words, we give them a 3% cola in 2025, >> right? >> I think some of that is because you're moving some of the salary to other I mean uh categories and I think the other one is is um unfilled positions. Well, I I just have a problem when you got 12 people and you got this pile of money and one year you're here and now you take out some of that money, somebody's losing somewhere in the numbers. I know we re-calibrated the whole system, but if you have 12 people and your budget's let's say $1,200 and the next year it's $1,100 and you got 12 people, somebody lost. >> But we don't I mean, think about it. We we haven't um replaced the accounting assistant position that's been vacant since whenever Brenda resigned >> June. >> Yeah. And but the number is still budgeted for wages and you're a full salary because we're I Lord I hope we're going to have that position filled for 2026. And you know, Ron, it's this number is just reflective of those people under this under the building department. There's I believe it's $54,000 in wages there that we got to go and add back to that. In public works, there's 310, I believe, and in the water department there's 46. So essentially, you would add $410,000 back to that number, which would get you to at least on the 20 26 budget side would get you to 1,27,000 to say 1,ion30 $30,000. Then you'd have to go back and add those numbers also to the 646700. But there's $410,000 in wages that are accounted for in other departments. The building department, public works is the big one with 310. And then what we're transferred over to the water fund, which I believe is $46,000 in wages, >> and that is more than we've ever transferred to the water fund. I well I I I wish there was a flat number that we could have that says this is the raise were given the employees instead of >> Well, we do we do have that and that's what we'll present in October at our workshop but but that's not that won't fit into this budget spreadsheet. >> Well, I I bring it up only as a caution everybody watch because I think we got good employees. I want to keep them. I think we got to keep them. You don't keep good employees by not paying them what they deserve. >> We're not We're not lowering the wages, huh? >> You know that. I mean, based on what we've been doing the last six months, >> it's really complicated what we're doing. We took a 10step increase, a sevenstep increase and moved it to 10. So, that's complicated for some people to look at. >> No, I know. I I'm just saying that. But we aren't we aren't lowering wages. So if that's your concern, >> I'm not talking about lowering wages, but we're not paying any increase the way it looks. >> Well, but it because because what you're looking at when we talk about this in the personnel committee doesn't fit into this format. So that's that's why it doesn't look that way. But I mean, you know that they got a 3% cost of living increase in this year plus they got their step increases. And next year when they get put into the new system that also was inflated by 3% and they're moving to the next highest step all of them. So nobody's taken a step backwards. >> Well I I it's got to be explained a little better. I know I sat in those meetings and I look at it, but I look at this number here and it's a 1% drop and I'm sitting trying to figure that out >> because because I think in part it's it's a drop because some of the wages that were under administrative are probably sitting in a different category now. Is is that a fair thing to say? >> So the numbers that I populated in are accurate. they are based on the new grades being used >> um but they are calculated based upon a 3% cost of living increase and everyone getting a step increase. So as we are looking at the new calculations um the payroll numbers are going down. So, what did you do? What did you do for the accounting assistant that hasn't been hired for 2026? Did you have that person starting in January or did you defer it? Nope. Starting in January, I calculated a full year's worth of wages starting at uh >> grade two step one. >> And did you do the same thing for Lor's position? >> I calculated Lor's position based upon Lori being here because when I populated this, I had no idea Lori was going to retire. All right. >> Um, so that is based upon Lor's pay right now with her 3% cost of living because Lori was out of steps. Um, and what percent of Lindsay's position goes in the building department? Is it >> 12.5%. >> No, in the building department, not in the not in the enterprise fund. >> Oh, I'm sorry. So, it would be 87.5%. >> Okay. So 87.5% last year when she just started at the at step one and she's going to be at what step four >> by the end of this year. >> Excuse me. >> So she >> So so I think she'll be at step four. So that's a pretty significant increase. And that same percent now is moving o out of this and into and into the building fund. So, she's making more money, but it doesn't look like it because 87% of it is moving into the the building fund. And that's just one example. So, I'm just >> I I I know we got 12 examples. So, I I I I might be confused, but I just I think we got to keep an eye on that. >> I think the city administrator went through and and tallied every one of the salary categories here. It looks like that's the math he was doing. Yeah, if you take and add what we did in 2025 and it's spread out over four different categories. Uh, in 2025, wait a minute, I got to make one quick adjustment here. [Music] Jack, I have that total. It was 1,ion45,000. >> Yeah, I I had I got 1,ion48, so I round it up. So, in 2025, we had $1,ion48,000 in salaries. What I have here on the 2026 budget is 1,ion27,000. Does that sound right? I think we made one. I think it would go to 1,ion41,000 based upon the most recent sheet that I calculated for you. >> I'm I'm just doing these figures we have in the budget columns. >> So 2025 would be 1,48,000. 2026 would be either Cheryl's number of 1,ion41 or the mine of 1,ion27. So, >> I'd have to go back and double check this again to make sure mine were correct for 2026. >> And is part of that because there was a double sort of payment in 2025. The they got everybody got a 3% cost of living in January and then they also then you also inflated the steps by 3%. So, when they move to the next step, >> that's been the system that's been in place. But that's the system we're creating because or that we're correcting because that wasn't how it was supposed to be. So that's not that that system is not represented in the 2026 budget because that because there won't be a cost of living increase in January like there was this past year and the wages that are in the new table have already been inflated by 3%. >> Right? So wages will be less. So that's the other reason why the numbers are different. [Music] >> Well, I'm not a mathematician, but I think we have to keep an eye on it. I just think that uh I hope there's not four winners in employees and eight losers. Mhm. >> And I kind of like it when I can see beginning of the year if they got a 3% raise in a new grid in 20126. Is that what's or what is the percentage? >> So, so what we what we've talked about when we've gone over this um in workshops and stuff is that the old grid was not defensible. It was a Frankenstein of the hay system. And if you ever had to defend that in an audit, we never would have been able to. So we spent all this time and $11,000 to DDA to go through and do the work that would actually take market and make sure that all of the positions are scored correctly and put them in a new grid. So, it's really it's really impossible to take that old grid and the new grid and try to compare them cuz it's like the new the old grid made no sense. It was a creation of Elizabeth that she did on the fly. Every time somebody, you know, she wanted to give somebody a raise or not give somebody a raise. and it and it and the positions that she chose to compare to were not necessarily positions that she chose because they were the best fit, but because that was the salary she was looking for. So, what we did with this process is we took all of the people out of it and we we focused specifically on the positions and the job descriptions and scored those separately. And there was two different three different groups that scored them. And we then we took you know we took the the consensus of those of those three groups. That's what created that grid and that grid was then compared to market to make sure that we were within 100% to 105% of that market if I'm remembering that number right. I know that moved a little bit >> 10 down. >> Okay. Total >> 90 to 90 to 110% of market. And then people got placed in what whatever the next highest step would be according to what they would be making at the end of December. >> I I I understand. I I I sat through all that and I I I comprehend that, but I just don't comprehend this other simple math that I see and that's what I'm looking at right here that I I don't understand how come it's cheaper now. But but the thing is is that you know from looking at everything we've looked at in the in the personnel committee that no one's going backwards. No one is going backwards. So when you look at those numbers and it looks like they're going backwards, there's a different explanation for that. It's not because somebody's taken a pay cut. >> Well, like I said, we just keep an eye on it. >> What is the explanation that I mean? So So again, that that's your question, right? Like like why is it cheaper this year? that I guess I would need to really do a deep dive to understand that. But if it's complex, that's >> I mean, no, it's it's what I just and again, you guys, you know, speak to it. But >> speak to it, too. But it's because in part in 2025, and I you maybe since Cheryl has been here, but if if you the way that cost of living was supposed to work was that if you were at the top of your pay scale, you didn't have another step to advance to and you had an and you had a satisfactory job, they got the cost of living raise. So, if it was 3%, they got a 3% increase because that's what cost of living is. It was never intended to have everybody get a 3% increase and then still move through the steps that were inflated by 3% cuz each one of those steps is between 2 and 4% anyway. So, you add another 3% on there, now you're now you're getting a six to a 8% in or six to a 7% increase on top of the 3% increase that they got in January. But that carries over to the next year, right? So it wasn't a onetime bonus. They would then increase the next year. So then our number should increase with it. And that >> but we're not doing that in 2026 cuz that was never the intent. So what we're doing in 2026 is that they're not getting a cost of living increase in January because nobody is at the top of the new scale. Everybody has room to move. And the wages that were found to be in uh within 10% plus or minus um of market in 2025 were already in they were inflated by 3% for 2026. >> So because that part B is not being included that is the decrease >> because the cost >> because it's not being done twice. >> Okay. Yeah. >> So because they're only doing one of two parts now this year that is the decrease. >> Yes. Okay. I can understand. >> So we uh I know Mark Goldman, he never really gave us he just gave us these numbers at the market value and he said that what we don't want to use the term cost of living but the raise he embedded it in there. What percentage did he embed in there? >> 3%. So he gave us a he gave us a if you remember like back in I don't remember December or something. He gave us he's given us several tables as we've instructed him to. The first table he gave us was market. Here's what here's where your sal here's where your salaries are by market. But because we decided we were not going to put this in place until January of 2026, he inflated those numbers by 3%. Then he gave us a new table with all of the steps inflated by 3%. So there's 10 steps. Some of them are two and a half percent jumps, some of them are 4% jumps. The earlier steps are the bigger jumps. The later steps are the are the um the smaller jumps. And the reason for that is because around step five is where you hit market. Be when you're not up to step five, you're a little bit below market within 10%. And when you're over, you're about, you know, depending on where you are in the step, you're a little bit above market. And every year, we'll get a new number from him for where we are with market. >> Is is that something we need somebody to do or can our accountant do it? >> So, we need him to come back and tell us what number we should inflate those steps. That's what we're going to ask him to do because he knows what's going on in the market and he also he also knows sort of what the average wages are in all these different municipalities across across the metros and actually across the state. So that was part of what we we paid for in his contract is that yearly update. >> Yearly updates, but just $11,000 more we pay him every year. >> No, no, no, no, no, no. If you remember his if you remember his his uh grid that 11,000 included everything this year. Next year it'll just be the part that says for the for the review of market which was I can't remember a couple thousand dollar,800 or something like that. [Music] >> Well, like I said, we can move on. I just want to keep an eye on it. I just uh No, that's fair. it to me it it's numbers and it just didn't make sense to me. >> I get it. Yeah, it's it doesn't fit. That's why. >> And I did good in fifth grade math. >> Probably better than me. >> It was sixth grade that I had a hard time with. >> You'd be in middle school then. >> Yeah. >> Nowadays. >> No, I think they had it all in one school. >> So, we got to carry this on, Jack, till our next meeting >> Monday. >> On Monday. Yes. >> Boy, that comes up quick, doesn't it? >> Yeah, sure does. >> Okay, so we're done with item C. Unless >> the next fun topic. >> Uh oh, yeah, the next fun item number E, city council minutes. Number one is approval of August 13th, 2025 minutes, pages 7 through 22. >> Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The August 27th, 2025 city council meeting agenda and packet included draft meeting minutes from the August 13th, 2025 city council meeting for council approval. At that meeting, the council tabled approval of the minutes to allow council members additional time to provide edits to staff for corrections and redistribution. I've highlighted four dates and uh in history there where submissions were provided to staff and corrections were made. Staff has attempted to incorporate all of the requested corrections changes using revision identifiers into one final set of minutes now attached for your consideration. At this stage, there are multiple sets of corrections from different council members, some of which conflict with one another. The city council should determine which corrections should be accepted into the final record, which proposed additions, deletions, and or modifications should be eliminated. And staff recommends city council discuss the minutes and corrections and provide direction or a motion regarding which items to include or remove or approve the minutes. [Music] I did uh create a little uh key in the upper leftand corner of the minutes the draft minutes that were provided in your packet. Uh each one of those lines indicates uh a corresponding edit throughout the body of the meeting so that you can sort of make heads or tails as to which member provided an addition or correction or deletion. Uh, and when you get to uh, a particular page, which I think is page 16, you'll be able to see that there was additions or corrections made by one council member and then another council member is requesting that those be deleted and or edited and adding other things. And then a third set of um, edits or corrections came in from the original council member again making edits to what was asked to be deleted. So staff are having a really difficult time determining what should or shouldn't be in this set of minutes. >> This is Scott. So I have a question. I know when we originally uh were discussing these minutes, you had asked the question uh Janet or or suggested that um we might just want to do a summary on on the minutes. >> I don't think I said that. >> What's that? I don't think I said that. >> Oh, okay. >> Might have been Ron. >> It probably was Ron. I think these minutes like reading the Bible. I They just go on and on and on. >> So So this is Jenny. I I went through based on our last meeting and um I know that you talked about or council member Hegeland talked about potentially trying to reduce some of the >> discussion >> discussion because it was fairly there's a lot of verbiage going on here. And so that was that was my request to remove sections. It I really tried to focus and that was that was some of the time I requested to take um to try to pair some of this down because it it did get to be fairly extensive. Um but I know that you went back and edited. So again, I don't know what other council members and our mayor thinks, but >> so I can I mean, I can clarify the edits that I submitted on on 94 are the ones that are in red and underlined, and they're mostly just because the sentence didn't make sense. So, I added some words, for instance, on page 17 to the to the um uh motion because otherwise it read amended by the council clarifying that the goals the city administrator in to ensure. So, I mean, it just didn't make sense. So, I just added words to make it make sense. And there wasn't a lot of those kinds of of edits. But to to move this forward maybe the I mean there is a question about how much discussion we want to include in our minutes. And I think that's the thing that um Aaron really feels frustrated by understandably so because it's like I can't read your mind and everybody has a different um opinion of how much should be there. So, so I get that for the purposes of just getting through this set of minutes. I mean, I I can say since it seems like it's Jenny and I that are submitting most of the edits, I wouldn't change anything from the edits that are um proposed on pages one of 14 through pages uh seven of 14. And if you agree with that, we're those are good, right? And I think the only the ones to discuss are the ones that are on page eight of 14 and nine of 14. Some of which I'm perfectly fine with your edits and some of which I'd like, well, I don't know. I'd leave that there, but I we can go through and and and one by one, if you want, go through that, and then you'll know what you can keep and get rid of. And I, you know, I I don't know how we get to a point where we don't do this every time. So I mean, so I but you know, we can save that discussion for another day. So for the sake of of what this is, I am perfectly fine if we don't go through line by line. If you feel more comfortable that we do, I'm perfectly good with that. I went through and really focused on redacting information that I I thought dup was duplicated or um kind of repeat repetitive in a sense. And so if you feel that that is important to stay and the council is comfortable with that, by all means, I'm happy with that. It just was a means to not have our minutes be several pages long because at some point I I do believe and agree with council member Wendell that it is supposed to be a summary and and getting into this entire um lengthy um packet here. It just it sometimes it's we're kind of losing the purpose of I feel like what what our goal is. So what is the goal of our minutes? And I'm not here to create new goals, but I feel that some of this is just >> gets to go on and on. >> And and I agreed with I agree with you, which is why I said, do we really want all this discussion in here? >> I I'd like to bring up a point. Go to page five. Uh 176 to 184 I don't think has to be in there. I just And I'm I I just don't know why it's there, but it was said. I'm not disagreeing that, but I don't know why the color, you know, I I it's my statement and I'm I'm just coming out to say that I don't think that even has to be in there. >> Would you like for that to be removed? >> Well, you I mean to cut it down. I'm just uh these I go through it and I look at things like that and I say, you know, it's it's great to know, but it's not needed to know. I mean, because we talked about the color or whatever, I bring it up. it doesn't it's going to be further we're going to make a motion and the thing's going to be approved or whatever or disapproved and I think that's the point if we say we make a motion or any discussion well that's the time we adjust things >> so so then I think we again I I don't want this to go on for two hours because it definitely we we could really get into the depths of this but I I think I agree I I definitely agree with you and I feel that for the sake of of people who are trying to really work on this and find that place that seems to be a good balance going forward and not having to go through this all the time. What is enough information? I and I think you're I agree with you. I I think in the sense of of what you discussed with the tennis court and having the two separate pickle ball courts could be removed because does it add any value to what that motion was? >> That's my point. >> Well, and and that's fine. And I think if you go back to what Bill said when we had the discussion several meetings ago, there should be enough detail in here that it that the motions make sense. Like there's some representation of what the thought was behind the motion, what the magic right amount is, that's hard, right? So, so I think you know if you want to take I don't care about the color. I didn't care about it when we talked about it. So, I mean, if you want to take that out, that's your piece. >> Well, no, it's there. I I'm just saying this these are comments I don't think have to be in there. That's >> But if if I if I may, Mr. Mayor, your comment about color triggered an action back to the park board and now the park board's trying to determine what color the thing is going to be, which led to a >> a discussion item after the motion was made because Jenny asked to clarify who was going to handle the color. So, that made that that actually came into in an action item back to the park board. So, is it relevant? Is it not? No, I I and I agree that for that reason that should be there. >> Yes, I agree with you. But I get what you're saying too because you know it it's a lot of but you know that's what happens when we make these >> and and if what if uh what if the color change makes a change order in the cost of the project and now we want to know why uh the color change happened is because you can look back and say well the mayor brought up the idea of can we make it a different color? Well that leads to future action items. I I don't know. That's just my interpretation of the relevance to that comment. >> To to to be fair, he requested to remove 176 to 179, which did not address color itself. So, he requested to um remove some additional context that really didn't have anything to do with that specifically >> or to that point. I talked about color for a long time and none of that's noted in here. So, what's >> But but the thing about the fence, there was a budget impact because of that. So, I do think I mean it's going to cost more money to do that and I do think that 176 to 179 should be in there because that's the reason there's going to be an increase in the cost. >> It it's just an example. We all understand that that that's what I'm looking at that I didn't think it but you brought up a good point. It was an action. I I didn't look that farther down the line, but I look at it and think, you know, it didn't mean it's just me talking. And I think there's a lot of this in here, people talking that doesn't >> I don't I don't know. I I know it's a tough decision on what's right and what's wrong, but I I think if we can just cut her down somehow and um >> So, mayor, if I could, uh this is Scott. So again, I want to go back to that discussion we had on um what should be in the meeting minutes compared to a transcript, right? In my view, meeting minutes are a pointer to to the transcript. If we really want to know what somebody said or what that discussion was, we refer to the transcript. And so, uh, if we're going to build out how many pages of meeting minutes here based on discussions and have to go through this process on who said what? Two concerns about that. Number one, are you changing what I said because for clarification purposes because your interpretation may be different than another readers and you feel they need that. Um, I have concerns about that. Risk it of of changing the meaning of what that person said either by adding verbiage to it or changing even putting a a comma in in a sentence at the the wrong point can change the meaning of a sentence. So, that concerns me. If you're going to be changing what I said, >> um, that that would be concerning. or if we're going to change what somebody who's presenting to the council by adding a word or changing um uh a sentence structure. And I'm not talking about grammatical errors. I get what Jim and Megan said about grammatical errors. When you have city council spelled wrong on the heading and you go to litigation, the first thing that the plaintiff's attorney is going to ask you is if this is a true and correct copy of of the meeting minutes. And if you say yes, they're going to trip you up on that because of course there's an error in there, how can it be a true and correct copy? So I get that part of it. But my fear is is in when we are trying to talk about who said what, encapsulize that that we're going too far and potentially changing content. And we need to have that e either make the meeting minutes a complete transcript verbatim or shorten it up summarize so that if people really want to know what I said or any other council member said they can go to that transcript which is the video transcript and get clarification. >> But I I but the caveat is that if you go back to what Bill the attorney said is you need to include enough of the discussion that the that the motions make sense. It doesn't because these are these are more than just a summary for for the public. These are these are legal documents. So when you go back and you've got a plaintiff that's that's saying, you know, they're being arbitrary and capriccious about their their decision-m and you go back to minutes to show the discussion and that you've been consistently um making those kinds of decisions for the last 5 years in the same way, you're in a very strong position. And that's why they want that kind of information in there. But they don't need they don't need a whole bunch of superflous stuff. And I think to your point about whether or not your comments are being accurately um represented. I mean that's on you to look at them and make sure that they are >> which >> and I and I I can't tell you how many times I go back and go back to the video and listen to the dang video because otherwise I don't remember exactly what I said either. And sometimes I'm surprised that my memory isn't quite as good as I thought it was. and the and the video, you know, agrees with what with what with what Erin wrote down there. Sometimes it it doesn't. So So I think I I just think that there's a there is a happy medium here. You're trying to you're trying to accomplish a couple of things. You don't want them to be 55 pages long. You want them to be succinct, but you need to have enough in there that again in a legal case, you can show that there's uh thoughtful a thoughtful discussion and a consistent uh handling of matters that come before us. And the only way to do that is to include some of some of the discussion as to why we made the decision that we did. >> Yeah. And it and but I would disagree with that a little bit. >> Well, you can argue that out with the attorney. >> Yeah. and and I wish you were here, but it's just if if we're in litigation, it's been my experience that during the discovery process, they're going to ask for a transcript of >> No, they don't. No, they don't. I I know that cuz I was in court suing the city and I know what they asked for. At least for must. There was no transcripts. The minutes were the legal document. There's, you know, I I imagine that if they really wanted, like if the other side really wanted to dig into something, they might look at it themselves, but that's that the transcript, the videos, all that kind of stuff. That's that's not going to be what's what's being submitted. It's going to be the minutes. And unless they can go back and say these, you know, look, in the last six months I went back and the the minutes are are not even a near accurate reflection of the discussion, that would probably get submitted, but they're not going to sit there and cherrypick and and uh what do I want to say? Uh well, you know, really what what council member Wendell said was ABC and you just have AB. You know what I mean? I mean, they're looking they're looking the the only way a city can be sued is and and for the the plaintiff to win is if they are arbitrary and capriccious. Any attorney will tell you that. And this is the this is the defense against that. Well, here's I just want to butt in like let's just take tonight's meeting. We look at this agenda here. We have How long do you think this I mean other than this discussion we're having about the minutes? There shouldn't be a lot of minutes in tonight's meeting. We talked about the budget. Never made no decisions. >> That's right. There won't be. >> And I just looking at this all the items all the way to E. I I I couldn't see this thing being more than two pages long. >> It's four pages right now, Mr. Mayor. >> Four. >> Four. >> Yeah. And see, I think it's double what I think it should be. Well, and and and Mr. Mayor, I would suggest too that your agenda should you should be able to put that side by side with your meeting minutes fracket. >> Okay? And and so I use the word summary. Maybe that's a little loose, but that agenda that meeting minutes >> should be a summary of that agenda. And if it's an action item, how did you get there? But I think we're 14 pages of meeting minutes seems to be excessive to >> well because because there was a ton of discussion on some of the things that you were very passionate about as was I. And poor Aaron is sitting there going I don't know how much of this you want to include. I mean so if I had been doing this I would have wiped out most of the discussion because it didn't it didn't it was important stuff for you to to say important stuff for me to say but it didn't impact our emotions. I would only keep the stuff that impacted our emotions. But I get why that was a really hard call for you to make. And and as we review these, this is where we can all help Aaron by saying you don't need to include this, you don't need to include this. And at some point then you're going to get a much better feel for what you know what we want. Um you know the the whole the whole problem with minutes. I mean, there's been multiple ones in the six years I've almost seven years I've been on council. Timeliness is one. He's done a great job of getting these to us in a timely manner, but months and months and months before that we would wait to get these things. And then who can remember anything that was said that far that far back? And then accuracy. So you end up having, you know, motions that weren't really what was said or misspellings or, you know, in in this set of minutes on page six of 14, there was some confusion in the original version about which ordinance amendment was being referred to. So, I mean, those are the those are corrections that need to be made because they're substantive and they're and and they matter, but a lot of the a lot of the discussion, I mean, Scott, if you came back and said, "Yeah, I know I said that, but you don't need to include that and it's probably not relevant." We've been we would have been good. Um, and I but I think it's hard and it's hard for any of us to like wipe out what somebody else said. >> Well, yeah. And and to that point, um, you know, I think of it as a job interview, right? You go into a job interview, you walk out and you go, "Oh, I didn't convey that point very well. I wish I would have said." >> And so when we're editing meeting minutes, and I'm not saying this is happening, but I worry about we're so passionate about something that we're actually going to try and change our message or somebody else's message without really thinking about it. >> Well, I can tell you I go back and look at the video, so I'm not doing that. >> Oh, I'm not accusing anybody of doing it. I'm just saying that's a concern when we're going back and editing our own statements is I or we're adding a word for to help a reader clarify that we unintentionally do something like that. Um >> well and and and sometimes you do need to add a word because the intent isn't correct in the way that it's written. You know, it's >> but whose intent? If it's your intent, okay, I get it. But if it's somebody else's intent, >> right? And I'm not and I'm not going to do that for somebody else, but I will do that with my my own statements. And and you know, in terms of verbatim, I mean, I think you're really careful about if it's something that you are taking verbatim. There's quotes around it. >> And then again, we're not changing it from first person to second person. We're adding the quotes. And I and like I said, I do think spelling in particular and in grammar is important and I submit those, but I don't I try not to change content. If a if a comma is going to change a sentence, um, you know, I try not to put it in there, but I I think reducing the amount of minutes and like you said so that the discussion isn't as much >> should be our our goal. Just to kind of piggyback off of that, I think my goal so as I went through and edited, I did not specifically focus on my own minutes or my own statements in terms of what I thought may just be too much context to this situation with the tennis courts. So, I went through and and really tried to focus on what was duplicate information or information that I felt didn't really lead to anything relating to emotion. Um, and so I didn't specifically focus on myself in that. I tried to be um, wholesome across the board. Um, but I I do think that this is too much information. And I think we need to cut some of this down because in in a legal aspect, what are the important parts? And yes, there are important parts. And yes, we do need to have specific information, but this is so lengthy that that some of this is really just doesn't add to what the goal goals and objectives of this was. And that's and then again trying to have Aaron take anything from this and still try to figure out what we're saying. He'll probably leave still confused, frankly, because again, I feel that this should be maybe half of what it is because it really is just very very wordy. And then, but again, to your point, I I understand from a legal perspective needing to have information in here, but but what does that look like? >> So, so so we can get through this tonight. Can we can we agree that all the edits on page one of 14 through seven of 14 can just be accepted? Is there anybody who has any problems with any of those edits? Okay. So then on page 8 of 14, the only So there's there's two things that I picked up on. Um, I would I on lines 271 to 273, I would leave that in there because I think it's important from an open meeting law standpoint that we state out there that this has to be done by somebody else. Not just because of the open meeting law, but also because as council members, we in a power dynamic with staff. It's just you never want to have somebody who's got power over the employees asking for the employees feedback on their bosses or their co-workers. I mean that really should be done by a neutral party. So that's why I had that sentence in there. >> So may I may I ask a question? So is that based on what was said at the time or is that based on clarification? >> No, I said that. >> Okay. >> Yeah. So my the reason I I looked at lines 271 to 27 273 and thought they were duplicate information of lines 268 to 270 because 268 to 270 said Hegland highlighted the the necessity of using a third party to collect council feedback to be in compliance with the open meeting law. >> Yep. There's two different there's two different parts to this. So there's the open meeting law and then there's the power dynamic. So So they're two separate issues. So, so and and and just, you know, not pertaining to what should be or shouldn't be in there. I mean, as um as we talked about what would Ellen's role be going forward, even if you don't have the interviews and you have paper surveys, those have to go back to her for the same reason that you can't, you know, shouldn't go back to a council member. So, so and and you goes back to her because of open meeting law and because of this power dynamic. >> So, would it be fair to say to be in compliance with the open meeting law and the need to keep staff feedback confidential? I mean, can't that's fine, >> right? Most of that down because still get to again I'm trying to get to a place where we're giving the heart of the information that's necessary without having a very long paragraph. So, does anybody else see the irony and we are now discussing the discussion? >> Well, but what what Jenny is suggesting doesn't change the meaning of what was being said. It's just using less words to say it, right? I mean, because I said both of those things. I I made the point about open media law. I made the point about the power dynamic. So, >> and and and there are lots of things I've said in a council meeting that don't make the minutes that I wish would be in there. >> Then you should you should add them. >> But that again, is it pertinent to meeting minutes? >> Well, if if if it's if it supports the motion, then it is. If it doesn't support the motion, then it does it isn't. I mean, it's you you don't have to um >> So, I I guess I should clarify. I think the only thing I've ever asked of Aaron is if I vote and at the time of my vote I give an explanation, I want that in the media minutes. That should be verbatim quote. >> And I absolutely >> beyond that, if somebody wants to know what I said, they can go to the transcript. That's how I view it. >> Well, and that's fine. But I think that if if what you said alters the action or the motion, it should be included because otherwise otherwise it just looks like a list of motions. Here's the here's the topic of the of the from the agenda and then there's a motion with no no road map as to how you got there. So that that I think that's what Bill was trying to get at when he made the comment that, you know, you should include enough discussion that it the motion makes sense, but you don't have to include everybody's point of view. My question is though, if I don't put any discussion from one council member and there is discussion from other council members and then there's a motion and then one council member votes no, but there isn't any supportive statements as to why they voted no in the previous discussion, then then people are going to go, why did they vote no? Well, maybe if we would have included one or two sentences that during the discussion they disagreed with the cost of something or they didn't think it was necessary, that might explain a little bit as to why they voted no. But if you don't put any comments and then >> council member Wendle voted no, >> right? And which is why like I I usually will ask like why did you v vote day because there hasn't been any discussion to it and I think it's it's helpful to know that. But to your I mean to your point on like page 10 of 14. I mean when we talked about those April 23rd minutes that went on and on and on too. You did a great job summarizing that. I mean you cut it right to the chase and it was perfect. So this is Rob. I know we've talked about this in the past and and previous to you know the last few meetings you were we were sending in edits if there needed to be edits. What stopped that from being the practice versus what we're doing now by wasting an hour of every council meeting talking about minutes. >> So this is the result of the edits coming back and now you guys get a copy of those. >> So then that got looked over, right? We're approve we're going to approve it today when it was sent out then. Right. >> That's that's the guidance. But there again in this particular set there are corrections or suggestions and then another council member thinks those should be gone. But then at the same time, the original council member who put those in wanted corrections to what the other council member thinks need to be removed. I don't know where to start. I mean, every meeting I'm in throughout the day has minutes taken and this seems like farreaching, you know, union stuff, things that that do might need to look at, things of that nature. And it's like he said this, she said this. It used to be there was discussion around this and here was a resolution. Boom. We're done. Move on. If you want to watch it on the movie, watch it on the movie. No one comes to our meetings hardly. We have four people. Most the people that attend these meetings, they watch them the next day. And then we get calls like, "What did you guys mean about that?" But I get where you're getting with the legalities, but it gets very time consuming. And I'm feeling bad for Aaron every time publicly going over this like, "You did this wrong. You did this wrong." That's what it feels like to me. Like we're >> Well, I don't I don't feel that. tell everyone over here like what are we doing? >> This is every dang meeting. >> Well, okay. So, you also have to realize that for until maybe the last few months, I was the only one that was submitting. >> Sure. >> And so, I made a point of that in the and said, "Hey, I'm the only one that's doing this. Do you guys ever read these? You know, your name is spelled wrong. This is this." And I so I invited that input. This is what we get. >> Are you saying I'm the problem? >> No, no, no, no, no. I'm not. I'm not. I'm just saying that, you know, I I >> And not to sound frustrated, right? It just is a little, right? >> So, now there's more there's issues, right? You're reading it and and now we're we're sorting out sort of the differences, but I want to get through this. So, can we just go back to this set of minutes and say on page 8 to 14, let's make the edit that that Jenny suggested if if you want to say it again in case Aaron didn't get a chance to write it down. So starting on page uh on 8 of 14 at the very bottom it says 16. >> Okay. >> Um so Aaron on line 269 uh or 268 starting Hegeland highlighted the necessity of using a third party to collect council feedback uh to be in compliance with the open meeting law. And then after that you would cross out uh everything that is currently crossed out. Uh and then um we would uncross out uh with the open meeting law and then where it starts on 272 and staff or no I'm sorry and the need to keep staff feedback confidential that would be included again. So and the need to keep staff feedback confidential. Everything before that though that middle part would be crossed out. So, just to read it again, Hegeland stated the necessity of using a third party to collect council feedback to be in compliance with the open meeting law and the need to keep staff feedback confidential. Does that sound correct? >> Perfect. >> Perfect. And so then I would I would also say that in lines 274 to 279 is fine. I would say that um the only change I would make from 280 to 289 is I don't think that the these edits it's it's a complete sentence. So the first is fine. Then you crossed out Hegeland stated um she believed that the city administrators have more than enough to do and and then this to the to do then they have time to do it. So, if you cross that out, then I don't know how to pick up and establishing goals helps the city. I think there still needs to be something ahead of and establishing goals helps the city because the first sentence ends and then there's nothing before the and establishing goals helps the city administrator unless you unless you want to say council member Wendel pushed back on the process and believes that formulating goals is not necessary and establishing goals because he's saying it's not necessary. He's not saying that it's establishing goals helps the city administer to keep on task with the things the that was what I was saying. So it feels like there has to be something before that sentence if we're going to leave that sentence in. Or you could just say Hegeland uh stated that establishing goals helps the city administrator keep on task with those things that the council is prioritizing. then then it would be fine. >> Um my edit on that was council member Wendell again pushed back on the process and believes that formulating goals is not necessary and then uh Wendell believes that this is more than this more than the city of Columbus needs to do but agreed that an annual review was necessary and he doesn't believe that the consultant was necessary. I but but when you look at what I mean there's and establishing goals helps the city administer to keep on task. >> That's the one that you submitted after she eliminated everything. So I can't I don't know how to to make that clear that >> and again we can leave that entire >> can you just say Hegeland said or stated that establishing goals helps the city administrator keep on task with those things that the council's prioritizing. >> Yes. And I'm more than comfortable leaving that entire prayer >> and then the rest of the edits that you did are fine. Yeah. [Music] And then I think the edits that are in there for 290 to 294 are fine. They're just typo type things. And 295 to 297 is fine. And I'm okay with you taking out the 298 to 299. We're done with that page. And then I am fine with all of the edits that are on page 9 of 14 if everybody else is. >> That removed a majority of the things I I mean it really I just tried to cut down. >> No, I thought it was good. And the on page 10 of 14. Um I think the edits are fine, but I still I think that there's it still doesn't read right if I'm reading it right. Council member Hegeland made a motion to approve the April 23rd minutes as written. Consent agenda items three with format edits. I think you have to cross out consent agenda items three but leave with format edits. Then the whole sentence makes sense. You ready to move on to the next page? >> Um, go through that one one more time. >> Okay. So, it'll read, "Council member Hegeland made a motion to approve the April 23rd, 2025 m minutes as written with format edits, moving the bullet points under." So, you're just crossing out consent agendum items three, but you're leaving with format edits, moving the bullet points under, and the whole rest of it is left the way it's written. And then on page 11 of 14, um, I think all these edits are fine. There's just two typos. Forest in Forest Lake and line 397 is spelled incorrectly, so just correct that. And in line 392, sorry I'm walk I'm working backwards. It should be meeting not meetings because there's only one fireboard. He reported on the fireboard meeting of not meetings. Everything's good on page 12. Everything's good on page 13. And everything's good on page 14. We're done. >> Uh, no we're not. >> Okay. Do you have one? I'm done. >> I just want everybody to know that I really don't care if they misspell my name. Okay, I they didn't they didn't misspell my name, but I know I don't make a lot of corrections and stuff like that. But page 91, item number 91, that should be a semicolon and not a comma. >> Let's I'm just putting in my good for you. >> And you don't have to change it. 91 after demand, it should be a semicolon and not a comma. But don't change it. >> No. So delete. >> It's not the end of the world. Can we make a motion to approve these minutes? >> Yes. >> Would you like to? >> I would move to approve the minutes as presented with the edits discussed tonight. >> This is Jenny. I This is Jenny. I second. >> Would anybody else like to discuss it? We got a motion on the floor. It's been seconded. Any discussion or questions? >> Rob I. >> Okay, take a vote. We'll go. Rob said I. >> Janet I. >> Scott I. Jenny I >> Ron I >> you know Jesse used to do that quite a bit. He'd jump back and forth from side to side >> kind of throw you off like oh man I was still thinking. >> Well I just think sometimes you never I know we mostly vote yes but I'd like to start somewhere else >> and can can I ask um Erin do you have enough direction for future minutes? >> Right. Right. >> Not really. Okay. >> Um >> do you have a question? I mean, I just want to make sure that we're >> I guess really what I'm trying to do is narrow it down so that when it's time to pass this task off to another staff member that I can review what they've submitted or have as a draft and feel comfortable that that is what you guys are wanting. I don't want to do this task for the rest of my time here as an employee with the city of Columbus. I want to be able to, you know, pass this off to someone, but I also don't want them to feel frustrated um because there's corrections all the time. Like we we need to define what it needs to be so that they're not feeling like they're undervalued because they're not making the right suggestions or making the right word choice or making the right whatever it comes in minutes. So, um I can handle all of the the corrections. That's not an issue. Um, for me it's just trying to hone in on what you guys want is is really the the the goal for me. So, >> yeah. And a couple quick points. I know you're great at editing, but there are other council members who do submit edits, although not as in-depth as yours, and I've been doing it to Lori since I was on the planning commission to to Ellen and then then to Lori. So, there are other people submitting edits um and and that have been. And number two, thank you for uh um redising my point of view on the last council meeting without me having to say a thing. Appreciate it. Any other discussion? Okay, we're going to move on to item number F, announcements and reminders. Park board meeting September 16th, 2025 at 6:00 pm. Planning Commission meeting September 17th, 2025 at 6 p.m. City Council meeting September 24th, 2025 at 6:00 p.m. PTOAC Street Reconstruction Project September 25th at uh 2025 between 5 and 7 p.m. in the community center. Also in there on uh 24th uh seniors will be in the uh community center from 9 to two they're scheduled. And the other one is on the 15th we have a meeting at 5:30. That's all we have. Anybody want to make a motion for adjournment or >> I move to adjourn. Janet >> Rob second. >> We have a German on the floor. Anybody want any more discussion here? None. Jenny. Jenny I >> Scott I >> Janet I >> Rabbi >> Ron I 814 [Music]