I will take those batteries back in. I will take those batteries back in. Yep. Yep. Six pieces. First question is from five. Obviously, we have a form tonight. We have six council members in attendance. First item of business on the agenda is the citizens form. If there's any citizens from the community that would like to address the council, now would be the time to do so. Nick, is there anything you're gonna say? I think everyone else I got on the agenda. I'm good. You're good? Hey. I'd like to add something to get it and put in my 2¢, I guess. Sure. I see you're gonna I see the, liquor store discussions on the agenda.
I don't don't know if you're gonna make a decision tonight or not, but I was gonna give you my opinion, I guess. I think that the city should retain ownership of the liquor store and, not sell it or allow it to go over to the grocery store. I don't think that's a good setup. I don't think they would run it very well. I don't think it would be over later like it is now. I I don't think that the, that I don't know. I just don't think that that's a good place to sell liquor out of there. And I think even if we do lose money a little bit,
I do think it's a service to the residents of the city to have a city owned owned liquor store Mhmm. And to run that and to employ people Mhmm. There. So I guess that's just my opinion. Thanks, Pam. Okay. We'll get into it, obviously, a little bit deeper into the agenda. But to my knowledge, we've had very little feedback from the community as far as the liquor store goes. I've been several. You've Tom's got something he's gonna hear tonight. Okay. No. I I've heard from several people. Okay. Yep. So we'll we'll have a discussion. But at that point,
like you said, we're not gonna have any, motions or, decisions tonight anyway. So but thank you, Pat. Moving on to the consent agenda, letter d, please add the the prepaid final amount for the month of December, which closes out the 2025 calendar year in the amount of $118,566.64. Again, one eighteen comma five six six period six four. I need a motion to approve. So moved. Okay. See? That's why I brought 15 of them.
K. I got a motion from Merrick. Second. Second from Sean. All in favor? Aye. Motion passes. Moving on to the actual agenda itself. We're gonna move, red architecture down to, letter b under presentations. We're gonna move or we're gonna insert Inspire, for letter a, their donation request that Ashley sent out today. And then, under new business at Public Works, we have the transformer purchase, which is also in your guys' email. Any, more additions to the agenda? K. Hearing none, I need a motion to approve. So moved.
K. Motion from Tom. Second. Second from Sean. All in favor? Aye. Motion passes. K. Inspire. Do you wanna come up and sit next to Wayne and Sure. Sure. Introduce yourself. Again, you guys got, you had two emails today. Hey, look. It's your most recent one. Okay. Can I begin? Of course. Okay. My name is Molly Jones. I work at Inspire Incorporated here in town. We are, gonna participate in the Giving Hearts Day, and, we are raising funds for an outdoor swing set and for our clients on the February 12.
So we'd appreciate any donations you would give us. We have $1,300 in our fund. That was January's. We'll get February's. You know? He does. Do we donate to Giving Hearts Day to individual groups? Have we done that before? We've never been asked. K. It's a good question, though. Yeah. We I mean, Inspire, they have a you guys have a project that you're gonna utilize the funds for? Yeah. Is that a profit organization or nonprofit? It's nonprofit. Comments, questions, concerns. No, guys. I'll make a motion to donate 500. K. I have a motion from Wayne in the amount of $500.
Do I have a second? Second. Second from Tom. Any further questions? Oh, favorite? Aye. Motion passes. Perfect. Thank you, Ellie. Appreciate it. Yep. That was easy. Is that the first time I've asked for money? Yeah. Is the next one gonna be that easy? Rhett. Come on. I mean, I'll give you $500. That's what I want. That's You reckon? Yeah. What did you two getting along? I can laugh. Where are you guys? No. I kept you there for a reason. So the architectural design for the Public Works Building is, going to be completed tomorrow. Today was just crossing t's and dotting i's.
Tomorrow I will give it the final approval. And then on Thursday is the first day of advertising for public bidding, which is a twenty one day process. And the with a bid opening scheduled for February 26 at 2PM in this room. And that's a that's a a public event, that everyone is is welcome to attend. What day did you say? Twenty sixth. The twenty sixth. Thank you. Twenty sixth? Out meeting February 26 at 2PM. There is, overwhelming large amount of interest,
for a project in this location and this scale. Right now there are 16, general contractors on the plan holders list. I am not expecting 16 to bid it. I'm expecting a fourth of it, you know, less than half to actually submit bids. But that's a lot of interest for there have been years where I really hope we have three. You know, because because two, you you know, three, you can see if there's an outlier. And so so that would be phenomenal for the city, with that kind of competitive bidding environment. And so that's that's good news, for you.
I feel bad for these contractors. They spend, you know, three weeks just sharpening their pencil trying to get the most competitive fee, and then they might lose out based on I sent you guys the plan holders. Yeah. The general general condition. Everywhere. The reason I want to highlight this is because this is the opportunity for an you to show a courtesy to local contractors and tradesmen where they can then request being included on this plan holders list. And they can now they can either be a general contractor. But the likelihood is they are probably maybe an electrician,
a painter, any kind of subcontractor. They can submit their bid to every single general contractor. And it is very typical then when we get the bids that it is the same exact electrician on every single general's bid because they were low and they shared their bid with every contractor on the plan holder's list. So for example, currently, we've got local the ADA Building Center on the plan holders list. They might be providing the the roofing and siding materials. So they can submit their quote to every contractor.
ADA Electric, visors, trenching, GRAY Construction. I I hope I'm pronouncing GRAY correctly. Green Yeah. But it's close. Yeah. Wait. How do you pronounce it? GRAY. GRAY. And it's Visser's. Visser's. So you can tell that you're local and I'm not. Dustin Crompton Flooring, Norman County Heating and Cooling. So as many, this is the fairest way for absolutely anyone who's local to to throw their hat in the ring, which is something I wanna highlight to you now that if you are promoting this or you have people saying, hey. I wanna have some interest.
All they need to do is reach out to Red Architecture, and we can include them on this plan holder's list. So, the the bidding documents are available online. They're available at the Builders Exchanges of Grand Forks and Fargo. And you can get a print copy, on your own or, really any print shop, any any repro graphics shop can can print paper copies if you prefer. The other item that I want to highlight for the purpose of of of this group is Question for me. Yes. Does the bid specs include landscaping, parking lot,
and all the carpeting tiles and everything? Okay. Is that separate? Yes. The answer is yes and no. Everything's included except for landscaping because there's There's none. Right? There's no landscaping. You have a parking lot. And your your parking lot is is two parking spaces that are handicapped, which you require concrete for handicap accessibility. And there is a site, about a 30 foot long sidewalk between the building where the handicap parking is. And we have a note there saying landscaping by owner. So that's gonna be public works responsibility to put in landscaping rock.
We already agreed to that. There's also some existing trees that are being removed. That's by owner. There's, an existing storage garage that's being relocated by owner. So Yeah. Not everything that's a part of the project is part of the bid documents. Now everything inside is. So the flooring, the ceiling, the paint. There are items that are not included, furniture, and we show furniture on the plan because we want the electrician to be able to We are showing on the plan TV locations. So you're going to have a TV jack,
but just no TV. That's a by owner item. But if it's screwed into the building, it's it's part of these documents. Sure. And in in the I mean, I don't know that we need to go through all the detail, but I've provided I've worked with, you know, Ashley and Brian. You know, we've got, you know, the interior colors and, tile. It is a very, function first. An interior designer did, Tom. It's function in every decision we decided to go with function first. There's not a lot of flare, but trying to do everything very and intentionally.
I would say probably the the one part that you could value engineer is the council chamber has a wood accent wall and a wood ceiling soffit that's an accent. And then two accent paint colors. So that is really the only, we will say splurge on the project. We decided to have, like for example, minimize wind uplift on the roof. I just thought of every bill any building I've ever worked on, I think we want to fight wind more than more than any other. And, the very durable
window door frames are welded hollow metal. They're painted dark to have more abuse. All the floor base is painted dark just to hide abuse. Very economical floor tile. And the other all the bathrooms, with the exception of the city hall, are fiberglass reinforced panel, which is not a luxury material, but it's very practical, inexpensive, and durable. The one exception is there's two bathrooms that are a part of the city council chamber that have wall tile. Those bathrooms have wall tile, not fiberglass tile.
So any questions on design or what's included in the So the part that I wanna highlight for you, and this is what's gonna be your responsibility in exactly one month from today, you're gonna get we're gonna get bids. And our bid document has six alternates. So it's not just one number. It's going to be six different numbers. And so I'll go through those. But here's what's tricky. Some contractors might have the low base bid but then a real high alternate bid.
And so depending on what scope of the project you select, it might affect which is the lowest general contractor who wins the bid. So there's so I'll run through this and and you'll have to study you'll have to really understand this in a month from now. There's a base bid, which is just the Public Works Building. It's just replacing the existing Public Works Building. And With that is a new floor. So that is the base bid. Then there is an add alternate where you can decide, do you want to do an annex, which is another expanding the size of the Public Works Building.
There's an alternate to build City Hall, which is three offices and the council chamber and two bathrooms. And then there's is the police department. And then there is also a fourth alternate which is a little if you did the there are sub alternates on top of the alternates. So for example, if you choose to do the city hall, then there's a sub alternate to include floor heat around the perimeter. If you choose to do the police station, then there's a sub alternate to have floor heat around the perimeter in the police
station. And if you do the annex to the public works, there's a subalternate to have that link with the existing public works building. And so these are all it's kind of all a cart. And so you are going to have to pick which part of the project you want to build and which part you want to exclude. And that also may affect who then ends up getting the low bid, for the general contractor. The danger of a publicly funded project is that it is open bidding and the low bid wins.
And so it could be someone sketchy. And you have to have a real, real good reason to not go with the low bid. There's some legalities with that. So basically whoever gets the low bid is getting this project unless they ve been videotaped committing a crime, small children, or something like, you know, really or just a track record of incompetence that you have to prove. That s the only way that you can it's not like a private bid where you can just like, Oh, we like the bids, but I'm just going to give it to my friend anyways. Even though he's the high.
You can't that's not that's not an option. So, there a lot of details that go into this. I've been working with Brian and Ashley. We have the bid documents that are available for you to, you know, study in detail. The the project the documents that were just emailed to you are probably, like, 99% done. And but they won't be finalized until tomorrow. Rhett, what makes what makes this bid process any different than all the other bids that we've done, including, the hiring of your firm as our engineer Mhmm. When we didn't have to pick the lowest one? Services.
Not product, not materials, but services are different. Is there an argument that the building is a service? I don't know if you separate the bins between the two. Well, I'm just getting back if we get into a if we get into a a corner as far as The the answer is yes. Yes. There's a way to get out of it. Okay. And I, means I've never I know about this. I've never executed it in Minnesota. You can have a pre approved, publicly approved general contractor who there's a book published called means,
SR means, that basically gives a dollar value of every single thing that might go into a building that's considered the fair market price. And if there's a general contractor who will agree to build it for the the book value of everything that goes in there, you can just hire that contractor. You don't have to go through this public bidding process. It's not common. I don't know anyone that really has done I I would expect that would be a lot higher than You you you can hire me to figure that out. I I don't think you're gonna get the best bid number for sure.
Yeah. Know, pay the wages at the 23 days level. So, so that is a legal that is a legal way of hiring a general contractor in Minnesota. Well, we're past that point. I'm just Yeah. Get to the point of getting the bids in and we know that There's no one sketchy on the list right now. I'd like to work with all of them. K. I've worked with I mean, everyone well, the reason they're all on the list is because I've been working the phones leading up to this saying, hey. Do you wanna show an interest? So I call the people I have worked with, call people I know, call people who are reputable, and invite them. But on Thursday,
it's gonna be advertised publicly, and people I don't know will be able to get it introduced to the project. The Builders Exchange is, in Grand Forks And Fargo is like a clubhouse for bidding. And a lot of subs will just go there to see if they have a board and they can kinda this is the it started in the olden days when things weren't online, but it's it's still a real helpful tool in promoting projects and advertising your project for potential subcontractors and general contractors to to submit bids.
K. Yeah. Brett and Mitch have been working with April, our insurance adjuster. So she's been reviewing these documents too. So she's well aware. And as soon as the final ones go up tomorrow, she said by the end of the day, she can give me an approval or not on them. So that we know that insurance approves the the bidding documents because we April is very thorough. There's a lot of questions. So Yeah. She's already kind of you know, she's just gonna have to get her final final look at it because she's already kind of reviewed it. She's had it the last week. So yeah.
I'm not gonna just surprise her and be like, oh, here you go. Yeah. Mhmm. So k. Any other questions? Anything else for us? No. This is I mean, next week. But How about special meetings for the February 26? Well, it's a bid opening, so it's not a council meeting. Okay. We're not gonna take any action at that time. Right? No. We're just opening them. Yeah. Because I think everybody's gonna wanna Yeah. Digest. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's on a Thursday, and then the following Tuesday is our council meeting. So you'll have that Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday to to review it.
With that. Yeah. And we have so the the bid opening, obviously, is the twenty sixth. The red when is our what's our window from there? Do we need to make a decision at that following Tuesday? No. It's, I gotta look good at work. Days. No. It's like sixty days. K. Perfect. They gotta That's what I wanna reiterate to the council and the community that this we don't have to Yeah. I think they're required to hold their price for I believe it's sixty days. Okay. If you wouldn't mind looking at And if it if that expires, then then it's kind of like a they don't they can change or, you know,
things change. But, I I I don't know why you'd wanna delay it more than three weeks. No. But I I think maybe a week or two is Oh, no. No. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's no interest of everybody at this table. No. So k. You you you will not need to make a final decision on your council meeting on the March 3. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. You can discuss it, debate it, you know, but yeah, you don't have to. Okay. Will they state in their bids like timeline? Yeah. Substantial completion. We put a date on there for substantial completion.
And they and, usually, they just always pick the date that we specify. Right. You mentioned that you we will we'll get a, like kind of a list of the different options. Will that be laid out and spelled out in the bidding process? Correct. Yep. Okay. So we'll be able to like There'll be a zid tab that kind of looks like a grid, a spreadsheet with columns and rows. Okay. Or rows and columns. And so just because of the high number of ad alternates, that's what kind of makes this a little abnormal.
Now you you could just look at the end and see the grand total. And if that's a swallowable pill, then it's just one project. But, you know, this gives you options. It's also necessary because part of this project is being funded by insurance. Correct. And so we had to specify exactly only insurance the insured area as being a separate number. And that will all be spelled out too. Right? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. K. Any other questions for Ratin? Anybody? Okay. Perfect. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it, folks. Okay. Moving on to mayor's report. I gave you guys all the committee appointments for 2026.
I will say this. Most of them are the same. From my understanding, this is gonna be changing, in the next month or two. So, I'd like to leave them at this for the time being, and we can adjust them as, the next couple months kinda play out. But, I need a motion to approve my committee appointments. So moved. K. And a motion from Eric, second from Tom. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Motion passes. K. Administrative clerk, transition report. Yeah. I just have a couple of things. No. That was it. Sorry. Yeah. I'm I'm grabbing. Back to the Public Works Building real quick. I don't know if everybody saw my email,
but last month when we were in here, we discussed replacing that floor, and insurance will cover that. It's a separate claim, but we are able to get that. It's a $5,000 deductible. So, Brian had visitors go out there and and blow up the lines, and there was some cracked lines. So, the next step for the department updates, the biggest thing from the deco center is the hot tub is up and running. It was approved by the state, finally. So Ram has been working hard on that. And then the police department, as you guys have seen, we have the new police vehicles out, and they've been so now both vehicles have the same,
graphics on it as well out there. So Just wondering. What? One's just wondering. It's got an old one. I think it's Steve. That's Steve's. The other two are the same. Correct. Yeah. Yep. Yes. And then I just really wanted to move into the liquor store discussion unless you guys have any specific questions about the the department. No. Okay. Okay. Do we have to have a public hearing? Because we've lost my two of the last three years. I think you have three years in Yeah. Three three years consecutive. Yeah. In three. So and we should, with this topic, have a public hearing anyways.
But I still wanted to we haven't had any discussion in this room about it. What you guys are thoughts are. If you guys have questions or Well, I've been contacted by several citizens, and they pretty much almost word for word, say what Pat says. They're not in favor of it. And that's Tom, and I agree with you a 100%. Has anyone heard the other side? And that's I I guess that's where I was getting with my comment earlier that if there's no comment in it the other direction, this is this can be squashed.
And, you know, Tony's already told us that he's not, wanting to compete with us anyway. So unless anyone's approached any of the council members, Ashley or myself, in regards to either purchasing the building, purchasing the off sale, or a combination of the both. It would be, my recommendation to remove this from the agenda from here on out until we Until somebody brings it back on. I mean, it's Well and and I guess, you know, we've we've kinda brought this up. It's been brought up a number of times, but I don't think we've got any specifics, you know, as at least for as far as I know,
how late it's gonna be open. You know, is it gonna be open Sundays? What what is it gonna clock, you said? That's that's what it's gonna close? Hours. Yeah. Yeah. He'd be open to say about time. But but the follow-up question, and I asked him point blank, he doesn't wanna compete with us anyway. So, yeah, I mean, he's respect in our decision if we decided to move forward with that. I don't know why we'd wanna cut the hours, honestly. I mean Well, it wouldn't be up to us. Say hours. No. If we we bought it, though. Yeah. Yeah. You know, that's what I mean. Yeah. It'd be the same hours. It's different hours. I'm not. I think we should just put it to rest.
Yeah. I agree. I'll make the motion. We quit talking about this. I'll second. Okay. The motion to weigh in second tonight. I like that motion. All in favor? I'm fine. Okay. Motion passes. Thanks, Pat. Troublemaker. Okay. Moving on to old business. We do have thirty two minutes. Just an FYI before you guys got ahead to the caucuses. So, new business, kaleidoscope guests, Wayne and Scott e. Will be around. Thursday? Got it? Or Thursday? Mhmm. Yep. At 09:00? K. If either one of you guys can't make it, I will be in town as well. Just call me or text me. Department updates, public works,
the transformer purchase. Brian, you got anything to comment on that other than it's in the budget. It's for the new and, you know, we gotta get on it because whether we build whatever, we're gonna need a different transformers. So many weeks minimum. I got a motion. Short, Brian. Sorry. But We're not. We might get search one of them. You don't wanna pick a fight tonight. Oh, sorry. No. I do. Oh, just not yet? I Oh, boy. Got anything. Oh, okay. Alright. I got a motion from Tom. Tom, second from Sean. All in favor? Alright. Alright. Motion passes. Anything else, Brian, from public works?
Public safety? Snow. Snow. The same with what Ashley just said. So much going on? EDA, we got resolution 2026 dash O2 dash O1. I need a motion. I'll make that motion. Let's say two of you are on that board. So Yep. K. I got a motion from Sean second. Wayne, any questions? Resolution twenty twenty six dash o two dash o one by roll call vote, Scott e. No reading. Alright. Scott n. Hi. Sean. Hi. Tom. Hi. Wayne. Alright. Resolution twenty twenty six dash o two dash o one passes, and then there was a waving of the reading.
It was under his breath. Yes. I said that. Yeah. I know. It would it's he's close enough. I didn't hear him. Beautification? We did meet, but I didn't make the meeting. So I don't know what happened. K. I've received a minute on it, so I'm not sure. I need a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. And motion from Tom. Second from Scott e. All in favor? Aye. Aye. This meeting is adjourned. Thank you, everybody. Scott, Scissor, and Main Street. I'll try and come over some money next month. Yeah.