--------- um Jenny are you ready to go next with the the paid family medical leave yes I sure can so something I wanted to put on the council's radar is um as of now um the state will require um all employers
cities included to participate in a paid family medical leave plan so I provided an um highle overview of the estimated financial impacts for the employer for the city and for employees um so that
you're aware of the dollars potent potentially involved was there an echo okay got it um there is certain I believe that there would be an option if the city would like to implement its own internal plan
then the state would have to sign off on that plan but then you wouldn't be required to contribute these payroll additional payroll deductions so that's something for the council to consider as you work through the budget process um Kiki can work with you to develop a
policy if you'd like to pursue that maybe other cities will be doing that you can kind of share resources things like that but this is something as of now that's that's coming um likely there there may be some adjustments I know as part of the state budget process that um legislators are working on this is part
of other things but want to put it on your radar and um answer any high level questions now if you have any otherwise just know that this is part of the budget for next year if we decide to go on our own uh when would we have to have the our policy into the state for their okay I
would say the sooner the better assuming they're accepting them because they're going to need time to review right and then make sure that everything you get the okay before January 1 so you're compliant that's what I thought and it sounds like Jenny from our
previous conversation you had said if we pursued our own plan it would cost the city less money and the employees less money correct correct what you would essentially be implementing is additional leave time that you'd be
providing as a benefit to employees but the outofpocket hash I think would be eliminated you know impact to another payroll line item so okay that's what I know to be at this point so do we need to give clear direction on
that tonight or you don't have to um I would just say you know in the next couple months you're definitely going to want to pick a direction so that staff knows how to adjust and plan how is this different than the sick and safe it's an
additional paid family leave program it was implemented by the state i think they put that in was that last year yeah i I knew it was coming but what the differentiating factors were between the two so they just approved two different
types of benefits and ESST was implemented faster than this paid family leave um so this is now the the second one coming are we on C1 i apologize i had to step out yeah C1 yes yeah we just
went through this at my company it's a It's a doozy it's ridiculous and we're working in 14 states concurrently and this is Minnesota's the worst when it comes to this benefit
yep um any other discussion on this one otherwise okay then the next one we'll move to is that what still with Jenny the admin clerk um finance budget scenarios yes so I provided um two um
initial scenarios and then I did um put at your places um an additional uh option two for both the reduced and the flat budget uh so with the uh reduced budget the items in pink kind of purple
pink um are just sort of um supplies and other um line items that um as a department we feel like could be tightened up a little bit yes yes um to try to adjust not ideal because it doesn't provide as much flexibility but um certainly trying to get as tight of a
budget as possible um also adjusting school and training from two conferences a year to one conference a year for staff and then with the reduced budget um mostly eliminating the capital reserve uh funding that is going in um
that's for the most part it's computers um but if there was other technology that needed to be purchased that would potentially come from this line item the new information you have today is the same uh information that was provided um
however the mayor asked for a budget scenario um if the city administrator position was not filled so that provides you uh that information as well did everyone on the council get the second one if the city administrator
wasn't filled okay yeah so you guys saw that if that wasn't filled it's a savings of 44% in this particular budget $181,000 um and then the other thing was half our levy last year yeah and the other thing
I had asked um Jenny to provide too is just so we could have visibility into it you know so here on the reduced budget of the 7% down the admin capital reserve is $500 proposed and there's 70 375 in
that admin capital reserve already so in initial conversations I felt like reducing that wouldn't be we have to pay yeah some you know if if a computer were to die tomorrow we'd have some money to to replace that so that's um you know
that's there and available um looking to keep something just to be able to to fund that um yes the city administrative position is not filled that's going to include the wages salary employer
employer P FICA paid insurance Medicare workers comp work comp and then so those and potentially savings on training different educational training opportunities you could reduce that as
well yes what does MC FOA stand for again which one the clerks and finance officers association so I feel like we would talk more about specifically this in our meeting at seven under new business topic yeah this
one topic seven yeah okay but in general on these proposed budgets from my lens I felt like the reduced one in in this particular budget or department it didn't seem a bad path
forward but I don't know what everyone else's feedback is are we looking at cutting out not replacing the city of M oh no i'm not saying that i'm saying in g well because we will discuss that okay in in the next meeting but what I'm saying is the original reduced budget with just going
down the 7% by you know putting less money away in the capital reserve doing one training a year versus multiple trainings um just shaving some off in different areas to get to that savings of about 30,000 I didn't think seemed um a bad forward approach to continue on
for this particular budget jenny what is the uh what would a step three city administrator salary not to exceed step three oh what is that dollar amount yeah what is that dollar amount oh can tell you I I did provide just for
reference um the pay scale but that is so it's per hour yeah so 18,000 essentially okay does everyone feel like we could continue moving forward with that 7%
savings path or do you guys feel other scenarios well you're I think your question is but again a deeper conversation when we get to the next but I'm saying just for the sake of now because we're not to that deeper conversation do I like the idea
of the proposed dollars absolutely yeah okay it's it's the in my business when we go through budgets every quarter we call especially when we're making them we call it Kmart blue light special when we're trying to
trim in certain areas but for a broader discussion being cognizant of of workload being all on the same page I think that piece table till regular meeting okay and Jenny did you want
to I don't know if these other two made everyone's packets um I had them just here for them to pick up so um the mayor also asked for just a copy of the current council 2025 budget
um and the economic development uh budget where we um budget for um contributions to Blade and the Initiative Foundation um so as far as the mayor council budget I I will defer to Mayor Carneahan um for that but just
wanted to provide those two items so that gives you dollar amounts for that as well do we Is there a dollar contribution fee that we have for being a part of the chamber no the city is not allowed to I just want to double check a number yes because I just paid my Yeah
and I pay my dues for that um talk about Blade for a second what's What's your opinion on the benefit that we've gotten from Blade and for that membership fee uh it's not a simple answer to that
question because it's requires a mutual engagement to say the city has an interest in doing X type of project would blade be the right avenue or would another the initiative foundation or whatever organization would that be the proper outlet to to engage and to
utilize our services so whether you're talking about region 5 initiative foundation blade deck they're all available and I would say they all for good or bad they all operate in a similar fashion where they're here and they will support us we just need to engage on now that could change but
that's my experience historically um here and in Cross Lake and even at the school um with how these organizations kind of function so you seek out their services and then they work with you to partner right that's kind of where I was at with it with my business because we were a Blade X member for 2024 and I
elected to not renew and go strictly the chamber route only um in regards to what the Minnesota League of Cities is doing for us is there like services that the league's going to be able to provide in lie of say we elect to forego the Blade
Egg membership no no economic development they are exclusive of each other correct y but a question that I would have is if we we don't give Blade a significant amount per year right it's $3,000
380,250 3250 yes so if we were not to make that contribution moving forward does that mean they're no longer a partner with the city because if they if they exist to provide economic development for this area right i mean they they would
certainly work with you know businesses within our community right and that I think happens more than we're made aware of um but I don't I can't answer the question about partnering with the city on projects if if we're not a member
i think a lot of the initiatives that I've come to learn from Tyler Glenn and them is that they have some priority items that they have gotten from feedback from businesses and local governments say Baxter Brainard
affordable housing how can they help drive that um for being one I think I would say it's a top three initiative for them is my takeaway of it as something that I would ask ourselves is what is NISWA going to be
providing to help drive those initiatives if it might be worth review or consider cutting mhm i would also argue that the city of Nesa even before that conversation
um has a ton of work to do um in the way of planning and zoning in our current ordinances because a lot of this stuff affordable housing and stuff you know um just quite simply is not
allowed in the city of Nesso in so many different manners apartments height regulations you know um all sorts of components um that that I believe the city has a lot of steps to do you know
if you look around this town um not a whole lot's changed in 20 years you know in the way of this you look at you go north to Peekquat you go south to Brainard Crosby Cross Lake look at those the housing the you know the development
aspects were a company like this is useful for is happening all around us it's not happening in this city and a lot of it has to do um not with this information it's it's like great come on in work with us but we don't allow this
here we don't allow a three-story building in town right now we don't allow private roads in this town right now we don't allow you know buildings over 2500 square feet for auxiliary structures for all sorts of reasons you know and that's stuff that Steven's
working on you know back there that he's identifying too and I believe that would be a fundamental step that needs to happen before we can really engage with somebody like this to move forward because completely agree right i mean
it's just we're engaging here but we're not allowing anybody to do anything and so that that fund fundamentally needs to change first before you know but then I would see yeah down the room there'd be lots of room for engagement with this
but you know even the the corridor that's been talked about the previous coverage on you know the highway 371 business district the land that we just bought all that before we do this we have to look at planning and zoning so that's my opinion
question Jenny what is the if subscription initiative foundation foundation similar course but different focuses like you mentioned the only thing I found a little confusing and I I don't disagree like we should be good partners in our community
and area but also like using taxpayer dollars to donate to foundations or charitable organizations versus letting the taxpayers decide themselves if they're a business owner and they want to make that contribution on behalf of their business or as an individual right because when you look at the different
foundations and this initiative foundation one of them you know if people have foundations set up for their family uh they can certainly make those donations out of that foundation or there's ways to do it you know to save on your taxes and whatnot instead of telling our community hey we're going to
take you know 5,000 of your dollars this year and we're going to go give it to these organizations instead of letting those folks decide hey I'm really passionate about this organization that one that one and they donate on their own it could be much larger right one individual could end up giving you know
six figures or something to an organization so that was kind of my only thing um but again not to send the message that we don't want to be good partners with the organizations in our area but just also thinking about this isn't really our money it's other
people's money so Okay and you guys aren't might not like this one but why I asked Jenny to print the mayor council proposed budget is because I thought if we're looking at ways to try to save the taxpayers money and cut in all areas our council member
and mayor salaries on the table as well um council members get paid 300 a month mayor gets paid 350 i would be willing to cut that for myself um to save money back to the taxpayers but again it's you know
everybody's involved and people are giving their time so I didn't want to make that assumption but I wanted to just bring it up for conversation we get paid for this yeah you get 300 a month so if you look at the budget for us to be paid for all these council meetings and special meetings 20 Well not not a
lot but you know what I mean it adds up 25,000 is still 25,000 yeah it is um I think that would show if I mean the dollar impact may be say you cut the salaries of us by 10%
still a nice show of effort to the community that we're serious and that we care so I for one I'm in favor of that i don't I don't know how everyone else would feel so I just wanted to bring it
up for dialogue yeah I guess you know just more tomato soup and grilled cheese and for me you look like a ramen guy yeah pretty good no I think it's a good idea 10%
or do you have something else in mind or cut it entirely i I was just bringing it up for conversation um is there uh well I think the statute's here for compensation yes yeah is that what that's there for that we can't change it this year so you so you
can uh there is a method to which you can adopt an interim ordinance that would then either state the new amount or you know cut it or whatever that was um that you can enact and it does say um shall be in effect for 12 months unless another period of time is specified in
the ordinance so if the council if there's consensus however you'd like to move forward with that and again you don't have to decide tonight but um you could in theory um I would say at the May council meeting if you had a draft ordinance amendment you could have a public hearing and you could adopt that reduction in wages for pick your period
of time that would then make that effective so just so you know how that process would work they'd have to we'd have to draft ordinance language to present for your approval similar to other ordinance amendments yeah I mean I'm in favor of it but again
I didn't want to you know I know people view we are already public servant you know that it truly is civil service so if other council members felt like hey you know I come here for the meetings I serve as a liaison I put a lot of work in it's only $300 I don't want it cut I
didn't want my peers to feel insulted or anything but I just wanted to bring it up for dialogue so do you have any views leave it as is draft an ordinance
okay well we can see what we want to discuss and maybe what comes forward in May mhm okay sounds good um Stephen was Stephen next yes okay
thank you Mayor and Council uh so I prepared um a reduced budget a flat budget and two scenarios of growth budgets all of which including a reduction in employer paid insurance as I am not currently elected for health
coverage i currently elect that through my spouse's employer so that resulted in a significant allowance to reduce the budget um in the reduced budget scenario I also reduced the professional services allocation to 35,000 down from
375 um which was budgeted in 2025 um that allowed me to achieve the threshold of 7.93% reduction um in my flat budget scenario including the reductions
um I also introduced and ask for permitting software to be added to dues and subscriptions estimated at about $10,000 year one using two cost estimate quotes that I got in 2024 um in that scenario of the flat it still
had you know something added in but achieving a reduction of budget of 6% um in the growth budgets I introduced um school and training budget allowances for the AICP certification and certified
building official limited as it was on the job description for my role um so kind of preparing for that certification pathway and ARGIS pro associate certification as we have now ARGIS pro as a platform for different things like
public works and sewer um I've been shared the admin access for that program um to assist kind of public works and the guys in the field with their applications as needed um just to be an in-house kind of reference for that
option B on that I also uh increased the professional services budget based on figures that we had in 2024 um professional services for my department is something that's really hard to gauge it's going to be developmentally driven based on how many complicated
applications come in like blats um and so it's kind of one of those ones where we are just trying to observe a trend and and hit it on the mark as best as we can so um happy to answer any questions on these scenarios i have one sure so
the cost of living and inflation adjustments is that an adjustment down you're proposing based off of including that in there no those were figures provided by um Jenny during the budget scenario
process of I forget what they were 3.5% for so all departments were given the same cola percentages and things to apply to their wages just as a starting point and we were consistent so um
and for so his wages reflect a small increase you know 25 to 26 when I look at the individual line items the difference is for the health insurance removal because he's not utilizing that currently yeah um and that's a significant number
okay so my question when I had chatted with Stephen about the like a combination of these budgets like the reduced and then um some of the items that he had put in like in flat so one thought I had or and it's kind of
along the lines of like the mayor council salaries is the amount we pay for like commission and committee members like if those were to just be cut away that would save
5,200 from the budget and then on capital reserve he has about 8,000 to put away but if that like maybe was brought down to 3,000 but then if he really needs this um new permitting software to help him do his job better
be more efficient um and whatnot because in the capital reserve budget for planning and zoning there is almost $60,000 couldn't we just pay for that permitting software out of the capital reserve and then we're still putting
three grand in and in theory if the the stipen for the for the PNZ uh commission went down to zero which would have to be a council vote we'd be showing a savings but we'd still be giving Steven
uh additional resources for his position his department and for the uh $10,000 figure there that was based on an average again of two quotes and that was the year one um amount so it's higher when you have to implement the software there's the
training of staff that goes into that i think it's like a three-month period based on the averages that we um got on those quotes and then the annual costs were about twothirds of that rolling forward and I felt that dues and subscriptions would be the appropriate placement of that in further budget
scenarios if we adopt the software so oh and also in that 58,000 reserve some of that what was being set aside for was a downtown master plan which as we all know is right so then I thought again we're not we don't need that money set aside for that anymore
so why not use it to help him and try to again this is a department where I felt we could see the savings in but I don't know how you guys feel so yeah the only thing I'd probably say is like the cola and the not taking out the health insurance would probably still be in the
budget you know something happens changes you'd still be eligible for it oh yeah for sure it's a cash cost cost savings but however we want to do it you know it'd still stay in the budget but more of a cash thing historically just
from a process perspective um usually midsummer we just sort of take a snapshot of the employees and what their elections are and that's just what we build into the budget that may change and we are just fluid with it and just recognize that that's a benefit that they're eligible for if something
happened life event type of thing um so we try not to overinflate the budget with something we know isn't necessary um but obviously if somebody needed had a life change we would we would provide that so we just try to at one point in time say this is what it is and then we move forward with that those assumptions in the the future budget
and then I'll just point out at the bottom of my memo I um have 17994 budgeted for 2025 that is projected to be unexpended if no life change occurs i don't know what the
process would look like but rather than um that just shifting over into the general fund maybe it could be suggested to do a later year-end review of whether or not I've used that or had that life change occurred and then transfer it into the capital reserve budget for my
department in case of a life change event in the future like setting it aside i don't know if that process wise would um be impactful or not but just to budget it and in case of something to happen so that it didn't impact the budget next year or in subsequent years
so anyone no thanks Stephen good you're welcome um I think Amber's next please it It went out of order i think it's out of order from them
All right good evening um thank you for the opportunity to explain the proposed park budget scenarios and shed some light on um what is presented in front of you so to achieve a 7% reduction the most significant decreases were 10,500
in parks other pay and 15,000 from professional services the proposed reductions would result in the removal of winter seasonal staff which means the warming house would be closed the rink lights would not be turned on at night and maintenance would not be carried out on the weekends staff could still flood
the rinks to continue to offer the amenity just with a reduction in service the proposed reduction to professional services means we would not have funds allocated in the budget to put towards advancing city park planning any necessary funds to cover the cost of site planning and materials or services
for public outreach would need to be funded from another source it's the goal of the parks department to offer recreational amenities for all ages and all seasons in all three budget scenarios maintaining or growing the capital reserve was a priority the funds were
kept in the budget to support the parks department capital improvement plan plan and possibly help to advance the city park improvements it is necessary to maintain and grow these funds to support NISWA's infrastructure long term proposing to remove the warming
house and ice maintenance services is not a suggestion that comes out with that comes without tremendous consideration if it's the council's desire to reduce park funds the recommendation is to remove those services in order to keep funds to help maintain and improve
infrastructure without a definitive path forward to pay for proposed park improvements we are in jeopardy of needing to remove infrastructure and ultimately losing both the amenity and the service altogether um happy to answer any questions there's
a lot of ways uh that we can look at this and shift things up or down or in or out or change the amount so thank you Mark you you probably should comment first or any perspective on it because you're the parks leazison
i guess I have a question how many uh baseball games were played on the baseball field last year um of all age groups yeah and don't we have a the NISA league too um we have a few different
recreation program age groups um we run the thorough league which is youth kids um we run T-ball baseball that use it May and June end of May and June um and then talk about actual like baseball
games like baseball so there's the Nisa Lightning they 9 to 12 home games and then each year it's um a little bit different with Pqua schools they'll rent it for their
um 8th grade C squad um so those are varying April and May then throughout the summer there's a few different groups like the baseball association and Brainer Baxter will rent a couple of different games hit and miss throughout the year um the Diamond Club will rent
out a couple of different days um sometimes it's softball field sometimes it's the baseball field um and so I'll say it's a varying amount but in a lot of different leagues and areas would we say 20 would be on average for
all those combined for just the baseball field or full just baseball field you know stuff that actually needs the baseball field and not not the third low not the T so for baseball field actual games from youth to adult yeah 20 20
yeah and practices and there's practices there too so there's varying fees for different rentals do we know expense for like fertilizer time mode you know I'm want I
guess what I'm getting at is you know we have the hockey rink and the cost of the hockey rink but we have we ever evaluated the cost of the baseball field and which one gets more use the baseball field or the hockey rink in a season or in a year's time you know um I don't
have all that broken out usually um you know fertilizer egg lime chalk clay things like that um water you know it's getting irrigated the whole Yep the irrigation um we replace all the heads
ourselves um and so there's some supply upkeep um it's not an every year purchase amount like egg lime we can sometimes go a season season and a half like I'll get it in the fall and then go a whole year you know and get it the next spring
um so supplywise it's I could add it up um supply-wise it's probably under 5,000 yeah i was just curious you know and then like labor on it you know are we doing 23 to
24 mowings um we mow about 16 hours collectively between all the park land a week so not just in the ball fields but all park land park give or take 16 hours
yeah i was just you know my question is you know back to between that and the hockey you know what is more what is being more utilized you know is one is one costing more expense than the other
the staffing of the hockey rink is significant in relation to the ball field that's an extra 10,500 um otherwise the full-time maintenance staff they're covered either way winter or summer
um it's you know we still run the Zamboni we still have propane so there's equipment and those costs between both seasons um big differentiator within the park's master plan there was no proposal to remove or
alter the infrastructure of the baseball field because of the lifespan that's left in it um so most of the replacements for the fencing the lighting are still about 10 years out yeah just a question i'm just trying to evaluate expense you know as a whole in
the park and the baseball field takes up the most room you know as far as like time for maintaining mowing fertilizing all that versus the time for the watering house you know when we're really comparing labor hours you know um I guess it'd be
interesting to try and track that well if you're looking at full-time staff that's just the budgeted amount so if you want to allocate their time somewhere else the budget's the same how they spend their time would be the differentiator yeah I'm just you know it'd be breaking
it out for that i'm you know I guess what I'm getting at is you know we've heard the hockey rink so expensive to get you know is but is the hockey rink really that expensive based upon the baseball field you know we'd
have to know how many hours are being spent cut mowing maintaining you know on a weekly basis you know the I get it that it's underneath one budget but we're just comparing expense between hockey and baseball you know if I were to cut be able to cut expenses from the
ball field it'd be the purchase of egg lime and the purchase of fertilizers and you can change the mo schedule to reduce how much fuel you buy um but there's not a staffing component to it so it's the
infrastructure and then there's the supply so I can't cut my maintenance staff's hours they're 40 hours they don't put overtime into it so the only area to reduce ball field is through supplies
amber in your opinion there's any reductions in what the park's providing to the community how do you think that bodess for the campaign that we're trying to actively push to have the park expansion and
renovation how do you think public perception would be it's awful it's awful to have to cut services it It's becoming a reality we have a lot of costs coming down the pipeline any way you want to look at it whether it's repairing replacing
improving it's a tremendous undertaking um the last thing we want to do is remove services and I also don't want to have a safety issue so it leaves us little choice at times it's not a decision that I take
lightly to recommend this i think we've I've been saying it since the day I got here four years ago that the rink is coming due it's time and I would hate for somebody to get hurt in the interim while we're trying to figure out a plan
um that plan can look a lot of different ways if we need it to but it's becoming the reality and I cannot stress that enough for the community i'm I can advocate on your behalf of the rig safety when there's pockets in that ice
falling and smoking your head even this year and we only had a handful of playable Wednesdays for the adult league right for the pickle pond league i think you got six felt like three but you're probably
Maybe you were there for three but yeah no it's it's not something that I want to do it's not something I'm looking forward to doing um we do need to figure out a plan we need to figure out a path forward um
this is why I in my all three scenarios stress so much in keeping the money in the capital reserve to allow us the flexibility to allocate when and where we need to for infrastructure the capital reserve is for all parks infrastructure and you can see in my
third scenario that I'm just asking to get it 50% funded and to get it 50% funded off of a balance that's not even a total replacement for all park infrastructure so right now the capital reserve for the park is
28,000 that barely buys me the playground not a new fancy schmancy playground just replacing the 5 to 12y old playground so the the costs are eye opening on some of the stuff um but
yeah to Joe's point of where do we want to where's the best bang for our buck if we need to start figuring that out correct i can certainly dig up more information to help you guys yeah and it's just really about the true expense and what we have
in all the areas of the park you know um between the maintaining the ball fields or the hockey rink you know I I'd argue if we actually kept track of the time cutting the grass and stuff in the summertime would be a much more expensive
operation than maintaining the hockey rink in the winter time that's a much longer season too right at least double the amount of time right but that's you know just as we move forward with any decisions you know starting to track some of that
information I think would be valuable to talk about and evaluate we our maintenance staff does track on a minimal level where they how they spend their time and which areas of the park system they spend their time so I do have that information for the past three
years those Zambonies are run by propane aren't they correct amber which you think is a bigger draw the baseball or the hockey stuff they both are different seasons um you know we're always the Nissle
Lightning absolutely loves playing here people love coming to our park they love having um the playground next to the ball fields we get told all the time that this is one of their favorite places to play in the area um with the Nisa Lightning success there's been other towns they've played with that
they come look at our facility like "This is where you guys play." And if you've ever seen New Alm has a phenomenal stadium and they're like "Oh man and you guys beat us every year with this setup." And so little perspective
you go statewide we can't host the state tournament here because we don't have the facilities when you look areawwide people love our space the ice rink it's the best sheet of ice in the area especially when it was refrigerated and the Zamboni worked a lot better
people still think it's the best people still think it's the best and so I can only imagine what it was six years ago how awesome it was so same less rubber marks on the boards from pucks so hard to say they're both wellused there's all
always people out on the ball fields for various that's where they disc golf that's where they run their dogs um blew little kite out there last month like it's a green space um and then hockey people love the hockey rink and they'll
skateboard scooter in it in the summer pickle ball in the summer right now currently um in general people love this park yeah i I guess you know back to my point my train of thought to come full circle and on and what I'm thinking you know and I
brought this up a year ago so that's why I asked about the maintenance or whatever in this day and age you know the equipment needed the time the vehicles the truck whatever to maintain the turf and stuff you know on turf maintenance and and the fertilization and stuff too you know I would be very
curious to look at is if we did bring in a subcontractor an outside mowing service company to maintain that park for us give us a flat bid for the summer and see what those numbers are
and how that compared to the upkeep of a you know of a vehicle of a lawnmower the mowing the labor the expense that we have our overhead expense times you know 23 mings in a season and
look at it i guess I just know um um from what I'm finding out there maintaining other properties like this in today's market and the number of people doing this so it it's it's super high and you know
a lawnmower now is 20,000 bucks 15,000 bucks I don't know depending upon what we have what um I just got a quote um a quote from mowing some of my properties that I have
and I can pay on these properties to get professionally done mode and have no labor in it and the cost would be over the price of a new mower was eight and a half years that I can get it mowed for before
I'd have that lawn mower paid for in 8 and 1/2 years we're turning over a lawnmower does a lawnmower last 8 and 1/2 years to do it and so I guess that would be one thing that I would look at you know just about how we're doing this and at least get a quote i know it's
something we talked about maybe it's not maybe there's too many intricacies with the park or something like that but that in itself could potentially be a cost savings you know if we just got that quoted is everyone tracking what I'm
saying you know I I guess you know because we have all this additional overhead cost you know built into the staff and I I I think it's worth a look at you know asking some contractors put it out there for bids and to see what it's
going to cost you know I know when I looked into fertilization services it was over 1,500 per application and so when I looked into that aspect of it it was we already had the equipment and that was more economical for us to do it ourselves um
so I can revisit this all certainly right and also something just to remind the council of and and Tom can speak to this more as well is a nuance within the city government is that we can buy equipment off of the state contract which is significantly less expensive so
that also it's not to say you know look at the contracting part get quotes you never know um but there is a a uniqueness to our operation that allows us to buy these equipment at a much reduced rate so there's that to consider too yeah for sure and and that's where
we got to kind of analyze all this add up all the components but you know as we're looking at stuff I think that we just need to look at every different avenue and and just see you know and maybe it's not Well we lost two
um yeah the answer isn't necessarily we're going to make the cuts here but it's good to see the different scenarios and the impact and what it would be and as Joe mentioned if maybe the way that there's the savings is looking into something else for how we do things right well and also we just purchased
the mower this year so it's a brand new mower coming up so definitely something to keep in mind as we go forward i know we've talked about it before so and I think it just further reinforces we need to figure out how to do
this allied fundraising group or whatnot to help us do what we need to do with the parks right yeah for sure which is that's a whole separate conversation but which we've already talked about but need to continue talking about community Center community Center um
this one is pretty straightforward it's a very um relatively small budget so there's um the wiggle room in either direction not a substantial amount of funds um most of the increases are due to
things outside of our control um with new communication contracts utilities um sales tax things like that so most of the cuts come from um small reductions to the capital reserve areas and then um
maintenance and advertising what's the Can you really cut maintenance though it's trimmed oh and what and the advertising 600 is not it's not a lot of money no most of the community center um
advertising is split we split one for weddings north with the pickle and then there's one in the chamber that we split three ways with um community center pickle and spirits oh okay got it but those rates keep going up so yeah they do
yeah this one's just so small anyway it's very small yeah I don't know do you have any thoughts Mark or Bruce i'll just address certain things with my report at the end of the meeting tonight oh
okay um Okay anything else for Amber okay thanks thanks um Johnny did you show the pickle mixed or Yes I do have the pickle uh pickle spirits police public works okay Harry
well good evening evening so let's see here um kind of straightforward um with the flat budget um I made a few deductions like with the uh pickle
supplies uh pickle nickel i think when once we change we get the two nickels it'll be more trackable um as far as amounts um I took a little money off the
transportation advertising i I cut a little bit um so the the flat the flat should still make a a great profit of aboutund almost
$170,000 um the only thing that would need to get fixed is on the pickle royalties you'll see at the top it's 19,250 it's supposed to be 22,000 across the board so that's a difference of 2750 um the reduced budget um I cut quite a
bit off the merchandise for resale um what I plan on doing is getting rid of some um items in the offsale that aren't moving so that should help quite a bit
um so I cut you know $55,000 there uh operating supplies I cut 10 at the bottom of the page i ended up with like 6.98% uh basically cut the um equipment out of the pickle the capital
improvement plan i've got quite a bit in there right now the only thing on my wish list would be well not really a wish list it's kind of a demand i met with the health inspector on Monday really nice lady but she said "You've
got to move on uh with the walk-in cooler get that wood removed so I've got to get a bid on that." Okay um and then also too 15 years ago when I took over as full-time manager that's when we did the rubber
roof uh if we're not going to move forward with a new building or whatever we might want to look at replacing that and I do have the money in the capital improvement plan for that so that's about what I have
um yeah I mean the only concern would probably be the the merchandise if we cut back on that but uh like I said even with a flat budget we're still making a decent profit for the city so so you said the mer the merchandise it's
the offsale or the actual like apparel no the merchant the liquor and the off sale oh the liquor and the off sale okay yeah and then we're still waiting on uh the items for breakfast i think the guy caught the same cred you
had he's kind of been like missing in action uh the tables and tables showed up uh TVs will be here next week and then uh we go live with our new POS system on Monday oh the 21st uh I got to
go in at 5 in the morning for setup and then uh we do live training that day so that'll be nice it's exciting exciting yeah that's a good word for it so uh I don't know if you guys have any questions
any questions thank you Terry it's been a while but um since we've talked about the walk-in cooler I'm trying to dig back in my memory do you have uh do you remember roughly what we were looking at for that improvement well I
think I think we can get it done for probably 30 okay oh I was thinking 40 but okay that's It's exp It's expensive yes i mean all they do is they come in they It's just grommets pull it out put the new ones on so we
just got to pull the pull the rails out that all the liquor or all the beer sits on sure and then couldn't remember yeah yeah so I mean we already got the brand new compressor outside everything like that is ready to go so
um we just need to get a bid so sounds good all right thank you good thanks Brian first what I just like to mention is each year I put in the budget certain
amounts for different categories and if we look back for the last 10 years there's numerous numerous dollars that were never spent that were in the budget and I'm a firm believer in if you do not need to spend that money it'd be stupid to spend it so in a sense you know I
have these three scenarios and yeah they're fine and dandy but most of the time in my budget I plan for the worst case scenario so in the 7% decrease the flat and even in the um wish
list those worst case scenarios were not taken into consideration just an example last year I think I had budgeted where I was projected to have $26,000 after a
profit after paying all expenses and we had over $100,000 and I don't see that changing whatever we put on paper here is nice but my goal is to make as much money as
possible um and but not to compromise the attitude of the employees at Spirits and Niswah or the product in there or how our um customers come in and perceive the store people come into
our store and they're like they have fun and they enjoy coming there and I wouldn't ever want to cut something that would compromise that situation now with that little speech being said if we look at the seven 7% decrease
which I'm not cutting expenses but I'm cutting I'm not cutting um sales but I'm cutting expenses and the only way for me to cut 7% would be the biggest one is cutting the merchandise that we buy i
could do it it's not a problem well right i mean I I know how those how that goes quantity better pricing um I wouldn't want to see us go down that road i agree 100%
no there's I I think there's there's a keen difference here for your department Terry's department and a bit on the sewer fund i I suppose but uh you're a revenue generator how about
what you you are a revenue generator or going this route of having additional merchandise to sell is going to decrease revenue thus decrease profit in the long run I would consider this a cost of doing business to make money on
said business right I don't I don't see a cut here for this specific category exactly a viable route That's is there I mean I I think instead of
looking at the cuts the goal would be how to make 7% more sure than we did the previous year right and I think that would be the best way to look at it and some and those are always nice goals but we are at you know the um
jeopardy of weather and different situations that come about uh it's hard to tell what this year is going to bring and what next and it's hard to tell what this year is going to bring and we're doing the 2026 budget right here right now um if we go off of previous years yeah we can be optimistic and there's no
reason we shouldn't be but circumstances do happen if if you guys would like I can go through each scenario and talk about it or if you have other questions i don't I I wouldn't say that in the area of the cut you know on on you know like a retail business like this and stuff i
don't know um yeah liquor stores can stay open till 10 p.m is that correct yep you know but also too you know with your POSOS system can you run a report on sales generated per hour so let's
take January February March i'd be interested in what the sales generated per hour would be from 7 o'clock to 10 o'clock Monday through Thursday in the wintertime and then what is our expense during that time frame and look at it
you know sure we can stay open to 10:00 but are we actually making money from 7 to 10 or should we be closing at 7 for three months and that is a way to cut expense overhead without compromising this and actually improve your bottom bottom line you know And I don't know do
you ever do you ever run reports like that with the POS system look we look at it all the time and if Yeah if you take a look at what we are selling from 8:00 until 10:00 in the middle of February it's doesn't make sense but it
also in my opinion doesn't make sense for us to deviate our hours we like to follow whatever Shapers does and I look at them they've been in business for 20 or 30 years or more than that but um you know they have evaluated and said this this is when our competition's open this
is when we're going to be open and if we start losing people from 9:00 and and or from 8:00 till 10:00 those customers might go somewhere else when it's 5:00 we I wouldn't say we're the cheapest people in town for
product but we provide a service that I feel is as good as anybody else and I wouldn't want someone to go down to Super One and say "G they have a gazillion loss leaders." And sometimes I wonder how they make money but they also
have 30,000 people in their backyard we don't have that luxury so thought long and hard on that we've had many discussions but I would not advocate for that because I don't want to lose a customer that is normally going to be coming during the day and if by chance we were not
open they the other thing is they want to depend and not have to wonder are they open or not open sure so financially it doesn't make sense during that time but then also to that time you know what's the staffing ratio you know so if we are going to
stay open you know and we're not profitable during those hours too are we just staffing it with one person during those time never uh we'll never put a one person on duty at a liquor store the pickle factory has a nice scenario
because they might have 10 people in their bar and they're regular people there's regulars that go in there if something ever happened they would have the bartenders back so we're in a much different scenario where we have a 6,000 foot building and if you have one person
in there just an couple scenarios you have three people that come in and one's distracting the employee while the other one's filling their bag full of $500 worth of of booze and two people on you can control that
and I still go back to about 15 or 20 years ago there was a lady up in Pine River at the municipal liquor store and she was working by herself and we haven't seen her since she walked out the back door somebody somebody did something to
her and it's our policy at work to always have two people on we do make exceptions for that but that those are exceptions for the safety of the employees yeah and I just bring up all these scenarios because that's more of a you
know cost savings you know to look at and literally I have looked and a million ways to to cut costs over the years i'm not saying I haven't missed something because there's always something out there but um and I
appreciate the questions but we have looked at those and I'm more than willing to have any one of you stop in just let me know and we can go through the reports and I can show you anything you'd like to know i think then you know another way to
look at it like you talked about it's a revenue generating stream in the city is we got to just grow sales right and we were talking about like doing that online or the pickup or the delivery and things like that so I think there are ways that you know like we did with the pickle
with revising the 2025 plan I if there's a way to grow sales even incrementally sure costs stay the same or similar right but we're adding more that way and like I like I mentioned earlier there's always room for improvement and I'm not saying we're
doing things for a pick down there but I do stand by with our past history and I'm a tight wad and I look at everything I negotiate with our vendors to get the best price and if there's
opportunities out there I'm always trying to do it so those areas that um we're talking about I work on all the time going back to can it be improved yeah but it's not
going to be drastic and I I I always like to say if if all of a sudden we can make an extra $200,000 then I wasn't doing my job last year type thing i think that's I think that's the point of when we were in the last liquor liquor meeting of
the liquor delivery sales contacting the attorney our our city attorney to try to get some legal feedback in regards to is this feasible what liability will the city bear what liability can we buck off to the other carriers the Door Dash Uber
Eatats Instacarters the What's the MUN one that you guys have oh um City High yep if you factor that into your business model that is like straight vertical growth because that is not foot traffic that it's foot traffic that maybe would
have come into the store but is now not possibly but also a whole array of folks that are coming here staying at the the resorts that are like oh sh we forgot to stop and I agree 100% um we are still Where are we at with that that's where
I'm going um we we are still waiting for legislation on the vi the responsibility and who's viable if something did happen as far as an underage person got liquor or if somebody was intoxicated and they were sold more liquor and then they went
out and hurt somebody who is responsible for that and it there's not it's still going through legislation we were hoping that it once we handed it off to let's just say Door Dash that they would have 100% of that
responsibility but it cuz it at one in the past it has been no responsibility for them sure would the family come back and sue them they would but um they'll also they would also sue us so right now going through legislation proposals is a
shared responsibility which still is not very good but um soon as we get finalization on what has been passed then you know definitely let the liquor committee know but is that is the legislation regarding all carriers or is
it the city hive concept it's all carriers all carriers yeah have you had any conversation with Tom Pearson i have not because um I pretty much going with what's you know what the laws are out there right now i mean I could talk to Tom
but in in reality and we're we have to go with what the law says and u right now there is still a responsibility now Door Dash and those other companies are supposed to have a picture of the person with their license
and um that's the way it's supposed to go but I have heard some horror stories and they're probably far and few between but there are some out there and of course do I do I think that's something that we should um city should say "Yeah we're going to
take on that with a possible risk." I'm not saying no to it i I'd just say that we we have to get all the information and I was just waiting to see if there's new laws coming down but it's something that we should decide before summer if if there's no change in the law we
should we should have a Blinker Committee meeting and decide okay these are the risks and are willing to take those risks or not and that's kind of where I'm at and getting that opinion from our already contracted city attorney I think will be helpful for you know the say the next next look at
committee meeting i got to imagine there's going to be some steps to be able to get these set up and when you look at your specific budget that could that could provide some
substantial revenue increase thus margin so I will send an email to our city attorney and um get some feedback from him on it yeah conference because it was ironic at our last liquor
committee meeting I had gotten some information and literally I was out of that meeting and a half an hour later I had information that was contrary to what we were talking about the other meeting so it it's still very gray yeah
good all right thank you very much thank you i think police is next todd good evening i came up with uh three different scenarios here first one was the reduced uh in order to hit the 7 to
10% the only way I can do that is with staff uh if you take away employee related costs wages insurance parah stuff like that uh leaves us with a little over
$23,000 for the remaining costs in our budget uh if you cut an officer out it will bring it down approximately 10.96% with that I estimated little trickle down effect um through some of the other categories in the budget um
things like fuel that would be saved certain uh subscriptions and whatnot that are user based on numbers if we were to go down to five it would have a couple different scenarios there
um one we'd either have uncovered shifts when people take things like vacation sick time are gone for training um if that were to happen the sheriff's office would be responsible for covering calls they're already stretched thin as it is
a lot of days um so you're probably going to see significant increase or response time from them um some minor calls you know they may not get handled till there is an ISA
officer back on if it's not something that needs immediate attention um also going to de decrease our ability to provide services um for the events in town which are only getting bigger like Freedom Days and City of Lights um run for the lakes is
another one that we help with um the other option with that is increasing the overtime budget um which is going to cut into that savings obviously
um right now I would estimate vacation time just that alone's probably close to 900 to a,000 hours a year um just to cover that so if you looked at about $60 an hour probably for an
average overtime wage depending on who's working looking at $60,000 added back in right there um everyone likes a little overtime but it's going to involve people switching back and forth between nights and days
um that's not healthy and it's going to lead to people getting overworked and burned out as well um the second one is the flat budget it
includes the wage increases and insurance increases that Jenny provided um that one with all the adjustments with uh retirements and whatnot here we're looking at about a 0 52%
increase and then the third one kind of a wish list items there um some of the things we're looking at getting that we presented last [Music] year were the flock safety cameras um they
are basically cameras that would go in a fixed area around town um they can be used to with license plate readers they can provide you information if a stolen vehicle drives by uh Amber Alert
vehicles um people who are missing or endangered if there's a vehicle that registered to them it can help with uh other crimes that are committed um you know maybe you find out about a burglary the next day um if someone says
they saw a red SUV with a yellow sticker in the back window uh you could put that information in if there was any pictures of that car matching that driving past the camera it would provide you with that um and hopefully a license plate off of that
which would be identifiable and the other thing we're looking at is a storage shed um we're out of room in our garage right now we have plastic hard plastic seats that go
in all of our patrol vehicles they take all the other seats out we have them stored in the garage right now um along with our radar trailer in there and two parking stalls so everything's kind of filled up right now would also be used out at our shooting range and uh to keep
a lot of our no parking signs stuff like that in um and the other thing we're looking at is possibly some more stop sticks um for vehicle pursuit type things we have two sets now currently and looking at four
more so um Todd with this with the shed have you ever looked at those ConX boxes for storage the what conx boxes um ConX boxes are what they use what shipping companies use uh
the steel container storage container basically you could get a I can get a 10 actually I can get a 20 by 40 for two grand okay um there's a possibility to get that at a lot less than the the 6500
um if I remember we'll I can come in and we'll talk about that yeah they're great options because they're they're you can secure them a lot better metal uh yeah
idea yeah that's a good idea i finally have a good idea i think your department's one where the increased budget makes sense and didn't you when we had talked you had said that Lexiple software though you didn't think you needed it anyway or you didn't need to keep it to
mention that there but yeah we could could X that one if and we had talked about an idea and Joe you and I had talked about it too even how the fire department does all these fundraisers and it helps pay for like their trucks if maybe we try doing that one for the police department and just see what
happens yeah we would also have to create like a foundation nonprofit type thing as well to do that i think so departments have a kind of a carve out and stack to allow some of that yeah okay maybe not
but that your increased budget even so it's not significant none of your officers want a bike instead of a car we we have a couple old bikes in the garage still so float that one out there
you have any thoughts on that okay anything else you want if you want uh to explore any ConX options I have a ton we use them on all of our projects yeah I'm definitely open ideas they're amazing
thank you Todd thank you thank you Tom i feel like we're not gonna have enough time i said Tom needs a meeting in and of it well you got plenty his own meeting right plenty of time just go
with the wish list all right um so I wrote a memo just kind of to highlight how I approached this um exercise um so I started off just by looking at the core function of the public works
you know what do we do what do we do for the city what why do you have a public works department and you know obviously it's um you want a quality efficient road sewer system um and building system for
the city of NISA and its constituents and um so with that I started digging into you know what if we were going to cut 10% well what would we give up so trying to preserve those core functions first i looked at well what isn't part
of that those core functions and one of the things I came up with was um downtown garbage service and I highlighted that in my memo i don't know if any of you have had a chance to read that but we spend approximately $17,000
a year on downtown garbage service we don't provide that service anywhere else in the city not for residents not for businesses down by the stop lightss 13 and 77
um you know it would be the place I would cut if I had to cut that much one of the reasons I'm doing that is uh we're not hiring back one of our people and the garbage service is a
labor intensive service that we provide and so to me it made a lot of sense to do that um and like I just alluded to the lion share of my cut to to hit 10% came from hiring back a man that we had just
gotten permission to hire back in June of last year so um with that I've been able to hold um all of our basic functions um about even with what they were last year
we wouldn't have a lot of room for growth we're already hitting some pretty high numbers with overtime u we just won't have enough man manpower to really uh respond to everything that people would like us to do you know for
instance uh manning uh events and things of that nature um it will short us a little bit on uh vacation coverage when we have people are sick or hurt chances are you will see
me out and about doing work under a 10% cut scenario in the sewer department um I've cut out uh two trucks that we were looking at uh with growth with the lift station 12 lift station 12 if you recall
is um a lift station would be needed to serve the new property the city bought um right now I'm assuming that under a 10% cut budget we're not going to be building a lift station 12 at this time um and so I've put those items in
reserve for now um I've also cut upgrading one of our air release structures we've been systematically replacing those year after year uh for 35,000 So we'll hold that for one
year we've also held off in purchasing any kind of elective equipment that we sometimes get such as uh vehicle attachments portable pumps that kind of thing so we'll make do with what we have that way um the rest of the
cuts in the sewer department came from um change in our uh personnel with one mic retiring and one mic getting promoted so there's a little bit of savings there um looking at our flat budget scenario if I can maintain a flat budget
or something close to that uh probably wouldn't be necessary to m to cut the downtown garbage service um we would add that back in i would allow for purchases of office equipment if needed under that scenario
um I had also cut under the 10% cut budget our repair and maintenance supplies to a level probably below what we would actually spend so in this case I would put that back
um professional services had been cut we could restore those um county and state road project funding I had cut that trying to get to that level um
um also under the 10% cut scenario I cut the wages for a public works committee we would eliminate the committee i cut some money out of the cemetery for uh future projects would restore that under this
um and also under the flat budget scenario we would continue to pursue uh a lift station one rebuild in the sewer fund so I didn't really provide a wish list so much because I think for our for us the wish list stuff always ends up being
these large capital projects such as the road bonds so I think those are larger discussions that you all will need to have as far as what you want to do with those so I just listed them out here and then there's other related expenses to that you know for instance
if you do build two new lift stations and some other things you would probably need more equipment and manpower to operate that so with that I guess I would look for um questions or comments
stocks so with with the garbage you're already short people staff-wise this year to even do that service so we use our seasonals too but um we had you know under our current budget we
have the manpower to to deal with it through 25 if we go into 26 um if if everything else continues to increase because you still have uh new roads that are being added um for instance you know got the new
development off of 18 there's more plowing more people that call my office looking for things trees down whatever you got so if I'm at the limit of my labor I still have to respond to those calls what can I give up well something that
seems optional to me is the is something like downtown garbage right and it's and it's easily available privatized correct that's And it's heav he heavily abused too that's one thing I wanted to bring up here we have people dumping
household trash in those cans um we have certain business owners abusing them filling them up with coffee beans right to the top so we have to use a tommy gate to dispose of them that was my next question is it being abused like the recycling was so I feel
like if they had ownership of that can in front of their business they would try to prevent some of that from happening not saying it would be perfect but obviously where there's ownership there's there's care concern and care if if if the downtown
trash was removed would the receptacle still stay i would say [Music] um we could work something out to provide those to businesses that want to retain them for whatever reason uh once they're wore
out or no longer good we wouldn't replace them because some of the expense that I list out there is the replacement of cans yeah i reached out to a few business owners just to say you know hey what do you think of this or business you know the people that own the buildings and
they said to me if it saves us 17,000 a year I'll go empty the thing myself every day and throw it in the dumpster behind my store that I have to pay for anyway yeah um and I but then the chamber was like but where you know because there's a bunch right around the chamber building right so then they don't necessarily have a dumpster the rest of
us do right right so we would continue to maintain the ones at the pickle for instance because it's city property right we would maintain the ones at the pocket park because that's also city property but I think beyond that if there's ones say in front of chocolate a&W or wherever they may
be you know probably would make sense to have them take care of take care is there a way to switch the cans out and just let uh service deal with them all meaning that you guys don't have to touch it i mean I see you guys emptying them all the time through town where a service would just come in and just grab
them like any other place and just deal with it to still provide a few around town but cut the cut the labor force on your end um dealt in potentially I talked to Dre Loie a little bit today about about this he called me and so we
talked about it a little bit and I said you know to me it made more sense to push it into the property owners themselves as much as possible if we maintain a service say we were going to hire them to do the downtown garbage cans i don't think the impact to the
budget would be nearly as great you know they're going to charge something for it too because we get a lot of during the week calls you know out of cycle with the service you know we we check them daily but there are times we'll get called at 4:00 at night the can is full stinks whatever you
know would we get an extra cost for that from our hauler if we were to hire one as a city i don't know certainly we could look at options for that service um I just scratched the
surface of what we could do here yeah I mean it seems like good cost and especially if it's getting abused you know it's kind of kind of like the recycling you know try to provide something but if people just keep abusing it well great doesn't make sense kind of to
give you an idea of what the volume is for this so we have a very large dumpster out at our shop that's for these cans and then in the summer when we hit peak season there's two more dumpsters here for garbage service that
the city pays to have dumped frequently so it's a lot right and we've been adding cans every year too so businesses have been requesting more and more cans um as they see fit we haven't said no to
anybody at this point i feel like there's a lot more with Tom's but we only have like four minutes so I feel like we need to reschedule to like do a deeper dive into public works because we kind of got cut short on time here well I need to do the workshop yeah
are you okay with that Tom yeah I was just Sorry not to I mean yeah but finish up what you have i was just going to suggest something with the computer not working you know I have a presentation that I was scheduled to do this evening too and it's very heavily focused on visual aids okay um if you were going to
do a workshop that would be a good time to have that too focus largely on the 27 road bond as well maybe in the next meeting or something yeah yeah we can do that perfect okay perfect
right anything else yep no thank you thank you thank you all right do we have a motion to adjurnn so move second um all those in favor signify by saying I.journed there's a couple Part: 2
so Tom do you want to do your presentation tonight or do you want to do it at the next Should we just do it all at once it makes more sense yeah we'll we'll push it make more sense to do it all at once probably
the easiest Okay okay I officially call to order the special rescheduled regular council meeting for the city of Nisa for Wednesday April 16th 2025 at 7:05 p.m if we can start with the pledge
pledge algiance to the republic stands one nation under God indivisible all right our first order of business is to approve the agenda for this evening madam Mayor I'll make a motion to approve the agenda as presented
all right all those in favor signify by saying I i okay the agenda is approved um next up is the consent calendar all matters listed are considered routine by the council and will all be enacted by one motion there will be no separate discussion of these items unless good
cause is shown prior to the time uh of our votes do we have a motion on the consent calendar i did have one question on uh item number 19 on the personnel policy and personal personnel leave policy updates for the 2024 changes i
saw a severance increase from 50 to 75% yes that was approved by the council last summer i just wanted to double check that because it was it popped out again so okay madame may make a motion to approve the con consent calendar as presented i'll second any additional
discussion all those Oh go ahead Joe along those lines on the personnel were there any other changes or updates to that that have been adjusted since that meeting no okay I went through yeah I was just making sure okay any other
discussion all those in favor signify by saying I i okay the consent calendar is approved um I'd like to take a moment to pause here um and acknowledge and recognize our city administrator Jenny Max uh she's given many years of great
service to NISA and has received an incredible opportunity uh in Champlain and Jesse I wanted to turn it to you yeah Jenny uh first met you a few years back when I sent an email out asking what it would take for a young man to be considered for the planning and zoning
commission and you've always been warm you've been welcoming you've been supportive i think I've learned a lot from you and and your time here and the the previous councils that I've been a part of um up to this one you've you've done a lot to be able to get us educated
to get us coralled to keep us on track um to keep us uh in the best put us in the best position possible the staff in the best position possible to be able to provide the best service to the citizens in this wall and uh for the seven years that you've been here I uh can
completely understand that a piece of wood with some metal on it doesn't exactly do justice but Jenny um on behalf of the Niswah City Council we'd like to present you this plaque recognizing your seven years of service um with appreciation for your dedication service dedicated service and commitment
to the city of Niswah as city administrator and I will add our first city administrator so um Benny Thank you um next we will move to open forum
um and first up is public comment is there any public comment going once going twice okay and then we did decide that the public works wastewater department annual presentation will
actually be moved um we didn't get through all of public works for the budget so we'll just do those all together um so next up under reports we have uh Jenny the city administrator monthly report for April thank you Mayor Carnes good evening city council uh my
report is in your packet um again this month highlighting a handful of legislative updates that um is happening uh down in St paul uh to the best that we can keep up with all of the activity that is going on uh a couple of items I would like to highlight um as part of
the report and also just information that I brought back from uh the last league board meeting from last week uh so cannabis licensing uh the state rulem is complete and the city should work to have our application materials ready for
those non-capped cannabis licenses you think of those micro businesses um some of the mezzo businesses that um there's about a dozen different types of licenses so uh that is something that um staff can start working on to have those application materials ready if uh
businesses would um choose to come for those licenses the second item is housing uh the three sets of bills that I had highlighted in my report last month um they're essentially stalled in both chambers um in their current form they did not meet the first or second
deadlines however there's always uh something else could happen before the end of session so these bills could resurface through a rules committee process before the end of session um there would be a a lot of hurdles I think to get them into an agreement um to to move forward but uh so we're in a
good position right now with housing but still something could come up so we'll keep an eye on that um with regarding uh the paid family medical leave and earn sick and safe time uh there is some movement that has occurred with the new uh legislation being proposed or new
language being proposed to modify the legislation uh the Republicans have indicated that they are interested in tying this topic to budget negotiations so there could be more adjustments or modifications to um expectations for employers and employees on some of that
paid family medical leave to keep an eye on and then lastly I have uh an update on sales tax uh so bills have been heard in both chambers um with possible inclusion of language in the omnibus tax bill uh the language is different
between the house and the senate so there would need to be some reconciliation that would occur not quite sure the likelihood of that and so if nothing is passed from the legislative perspective then as of the end of May um the moratorum will
lift and then the process that was in place um two years ago would just um start back up again where cities could propose a sales tax request to the legislature for starters before bringing it to the local voter um I I know that
this has been a topic of conversation the last few months and that's more to come with parks funding opportunities going forward um I would encourage the council to give this consideration for this option um and give the local residents the chance to speak on whether
or not they would like this revenue stream to be used uh for u you know funding our park system um so that's just my plug on on that um there's a lot of hurdles and processes to get through before that vote would happen but um that certainly would be a way to to
achieve those goals and with that uh I would stand for any questions thank you any questions for Jenny thank you um next report city attorney uh good evening everybody i don't have anything to report here
tonight thank you um city engineer good evening everybody um some of the things I've been working on is 2025 or 2026 streets trying to get the rightway information that Tom needs to uh start acquisition of uh permanent and temporary easements that he needs um
also working on um that Royy's landing topographic um divide uh the survey has been complete we're working on uh preparing that line um the other thing is G Lake Trail phase
4B contractor um landw wear submitted all the contract documents they're here for signature um and we set up a precon for oh I think hopefully April 29th for them to get started and also
been working on like stuff about pocket park to come up with some concepts or ideas for that to get that um some of those problems resolved same with the Nisah Lake Park trying to use up some of the extra money from the uh Gull Lake
Trail phase 4B for some improvements in the park area like a bathroom area or something like that um also our GIS people are continuing to work and improve and add information to the GIS system based on comments and questions
from Tom and people at staff here that's it do we have any questions anyone no okay thank you um next up is new business um the first item is to
approve the city of Niswah audited financial statements for the year ended December 31st 2024 um Jenny uh the city council thank you the city council heard a presentation from our auditor earlier this evening and at this time would just request approval of the
audited financial statements and the report to the members of governance do we have a motion madam Mayor I'll make a motion to approve the city of Niswah 2024 audit financial statements as presented for year ending second
December 31st 2024 any discussion all those in favor signify by saying I i motion carries also Madame Mayor I make a motion to approve the 2024 report to members of governance on behalf of the financial
statements i'll second any discussion all those in favor signify by saying I i okay motion carries um next up under new business is a request for council action sewer pump replacements tom
good evening everybody um you should find in your packet uh a couple of quotes that we had for some sewer pump replacements um as I alluded to in my memo uh we do an annual service check with electric pump is our service
provider at this time and they go through the lift stations and they do uh an analysis of the components of those lift stations to see the condition of them and what needs to be done um Mike Deck our uh new sewer
operator uh has uh gone through this list and he's made a recommendation to me of uh what he feels needs to be done and I've provided that to you so with that we're looking at um lift station number two um needs two new pumps
um those are 25,640 for that one uh the station number nine needs one um that would be 12,824 lift station 10 needs a new impeller on one of the pumps that would
be 3,83 lift station three this one um is kind of bothersome to us so we This is one pump uh station where we went away from our typical brand of pumps that we've
been using and we've only gotten just a few years of use out of it that's u our newest lift station and our biggest one most important and so we're already replacing a pump in there and the cost on that is 33,231
um electric pump would need 74,786 to do all that work um this is normally budgeted we do have a list like this most years uh sometimes it's one or two less sometimes it's one or two more but um this is where we're
at guess with that I'd be looking for approval to do that work or questions or comments are you going back to your old brand on the pump yes we are i'll make a motion to move ahead as Tom
has presented for the lift station pumps no second any additional discussion or questions for Tom all those in favor signify by saying I i okay motion carries thank you
thank you um next up we have a recommendation to promote Scott Williams to police sergeant so Todd if you want to come up good evening again um I think you said it best right there
um looking to get Scott promoted to the sergeants position uh it's your approval it'll be effective in June um along with the other promotions I think uh just once everything's approved to get wages and
whatnot hammered out so Very good i'd like to make a motion here to and recommend to promote Officer Scott Williams to police sergeant i'll second any discussion or questions for Todd all those in favor signify by
saying I i all right motion carries congratulations congratulations and also um a memo from Sergeant Shamansky regarding the patrol officer vacancy yes with Chief Taylor retiring in June
it's going to leave a vacancy um that we would like to fill to keep the department fully staffed at six members um like to get approval to advertise for that and get the process started as soon as possible here so we can get that filled
i'd like to make a motion to uh have an opening for a new police officer additional officer for the city of Nisa second do we have any additional discussion or questions all right all those in favor signify by saying I i motion carries thank you
thank you okay next up is um public works approve the road repair quote tom again all right uh so at this particular item um I was hoping this is the one flying oitement from putting my uh
presentation to the back page um one of the things we were going to talk about was drainage on the 27 roads uh some of those are the ones in Grand View and that's what this quote is for do an inch and a half mill and overlay through that
um area uh what this would be is a stop gap project to allow the roads through there to withstand traffic for the next few years while we work through some of the details of a larger project such as whether or not we need to upgrade the uh
sewer force main or if we're going to be adding water lines through here curbon gutter with the drainage where we would put the water um I see Lonnie's here tonight i don't know if he wants to speak for Grand View in any way on this item or if he has any thoughts um right
now this the larger project would be looking to go ahead in 27 um with the rest of that road bond um this would probably push that back a few years uh would give us more time to think of what we want to do with that and so I think um with that um you'll
see that I got two quotes for paving uh both with Anderson Brothers and uh with Knife River um Anderson Brothers overall is uh less expensive um and that project would be
158,32.13 so thoughts comments questions any questions for Tom do we have a motion uh I'll make a motion to approve the road repair quote uh with Anderson Brothers of
158,32.13 as presented i'll second any additional discussion or questions does this give enough time for Anderson Brothers to get it done right away for everybody uh so when I approached them on this uh we were looking at doing this in June so before
the early part of June preferably so I will have to talk to them and ensure that that's still possible i think it is sure and coordinating with Grand View right on timing and things like that obviously we're not going to do this on a Friday afternoon
okay all those in favor signify by saying I i okay motion carries um you're still up Tom with uh next approved road repairs for Wilderness Road sure okay so what this is is um Wilderness is on our
northern border uh with the city of Peekquat Lakes and um at least this goound they've uh taken the responsibility to go and have uh the crack sealing and some patching work
quoted um that quote was for $12,8340 uh we split that cost with them so ours should be about $6,41.70 um this is a normal budgeted expense uh just looking for your approval do we have a motion questions if you
have any i'll make a motion to approve the road repairs as presented for Wilderness Road second any questions or discussion for Tom okay all those in favor signify by saying I all right motion carries thank you thank you um
and our last item under new business is the city administrator transition um so everyone on the council should have received information from our labor attorney regarding different options regarding a city administrator
transition which uh oh is Brandon joining oh see okay um which range from you know doing an interim appointing a third party uh potentially dispersing work within current staff um
assigning a council liaison to staff so I guess just to get the conversation going um I don't know if anyone had anything in particular or felt very strongly that they wanted to start off Joe um as far as what it should be yeah or
your thoughts right um I guess my thoughts or you know it's a probably a bigger topic and conversation as we continue to move ahead you know we saw earlier how it would potentially impact the budget replacing a city man or not
um I would be um in favor at this point during this interimm time to uh disperse the workload amongst the current staff um kind of re-evaluate that and then um I know that we've had um as far as the
personnel committee um some conversations with the uh with the city labor attorney just on the structure and the and how the city of this was set up structurally you know city administrator versus clerk position stuff like that
and uh I myself would um probably encourage um engagement on all of us with him farther on you know making a choice in the future on how to do this i don't know that it's um anything that we need to rush tonight on
how we're set up but um just look at everything from all aspects um from kind of a a turnover um uh report uh that Jenny provided us you know kind of looking at that you
know and and the different staff members involved with the current different projects i think uh right now the current workload with the projects that we have going could easily be covered by existing staff without overwhelming them at least for a point you know will
figure out this transition so trans is is there been conversation amongst the personnel committee sounds like there has been at least of taking some preliminary next steps of determining the workload that is now
going to be either distributed as you're suggesting mhm um if this position is to be filled or if there's an interim solution or if it is to not be filled i think those are the three primary options on the table we want to make sure that
this transition is not only seamless but it's not going to affect the current day-to-day operations of the city which is a grave concern for me making sure that there is no disruptions to business operations but additionally there's a there's quite a few projects going on
within the city um we could even go as recently as uh the road bonds um coming up on the horizon here as well as the land and the uh development of that piece of property too um I don't want to jump to conclusions
and I think that I I believe that we can afford ourselves some time in an interim basis to make sure that from starting at a personnel committee basis that this is being evaluated at least top to bottom and then happy to I think the council
would be happy to at that point discuss either in a separate separate special meeting step forward or in a regular meeting to uh take back to the larger group what yeah what what the staff's thoughts are I should say department
heads in in particular personnel committee labor attorney and then how we can uh deise a plan to move forward yeah and to kind of answer that already with the personnel committee um we went line item by line item provided by Jenny all
the current projects and um um activities going on that she was part of in the city and line item by line item project by project um um it's already been designated which staff member has been
brought up to date and is currently in charge along with you know for instance city engineer or different contacts on all the projects so every project's laid out you know if the city attorney is helping with like for instance um some
land um um the grand you know or or um I'm drawn a blank on the word but anyhow uh that's that's all right away that's all itemized out on a spreadsheet for us right now and provided so um staff is up to speed with that as well as the
personnel committee and that's all that's all documented at this point okay and we were we were comfortable too with with our meeting after going through the projects that you know there's the key staff assignment you know if it's related to roads it's Tom if it's related to the admin clerical it's
Maggie and Kiki right that there were um the G Lake Trail and things with the parks is Amber that you know the department heads you know they're their departments they have the capability they're involved on the projects anyway so it wouldn't be a rough transition
because they've already been working together collaboratively on these projects and so it would just more shift over right in that in the transitory phase also with the personnel committee uh between Jennifer and I we had talked
about you know um immediately you know having a meeting with department heads too and specifically talking workload things like that and getting the feedback from each individual department head on on all these items you know and
any impacts to them so um you know that has not taken place yet but it's on the top of our list to to do that and engage to monitor that right away as far as feedback from all the department heads do you guys have any questions or
thoughts feedback on anything i think that uh staff that is uh working for the city such as women like Kiki and Maggie and the crew Tom and everybody i think they can carry on and I think we should give them
a chance to uh take it over and is there any thought of or any perspective on in this interim until we are able to come back together and figure out you know as a council a forward plan of having a a a person or
individual for the department heads to go to so it's not all like do we have to go to all five council members or you know again in this kind of transitory window i think that's probably touching on the author on the authority level for some some of
the points such as the expenditure authority contract approval dispute resolution perhaps oh yeah it's right here it's it's a clear delineation we don't want gray areas we want there
to be clear lanes established right and I think I think on the author on the authority piece of it going to the organizational chart that's that's in this um actually right here how it sits now as you remove the
city administrator from the current organizational chart the next level up is the mayor and city council with the exception of the committees and the commissions and city attorney and city engineer
um I think that's going to be crucial to establish hierarchy now I'd be curious to know what this looked like prior to the initial hire of Jenny as city administrator prior to where the city clerk sat in that position where did the finance
specialist sit in that position um I would imagine that this would have to be reorganized to some extent but yeah correct and that's a that's a whole different structural thing but that's where you know um the new and um current you know
city labor attorney is very up to speed on walking us through detail you know very knowledgeable on all these questions that we've been asking to help move this ahead you know in a quick and timely manner you know um just more so looking for direction from us probably
on on how to guide us as we move forward i would say the next 30 days going up until the uh the May council meeting it would be well worth our time to be able to at least put these objectives
together if if there's still unknowns and then we could still schedule a special meeting if if the need arises of course um but I would I would think that if we were to meet and discuss this topic at the next regular council
meeting that'll give us a little bit of idea if there's still uncertainties and and our labor attorneys Brandon and Angel are on remotely i don't know Brandon and and or Angel if you have any
commentary you'd like to chime in and add here we thank you mayor and council members well first I apologize mayor i thought I was waiting for your text which is completely my fault i'm sorry yeah so I
I really hear Is that all right sorry Brandon we're having trouble hearing you hold on one second yeah it's some kind of a short in your mic I believe brandon okay just a second
all right how's this much better much better okay great so I do apologize uh mayor I missed precisely where you're at in the discussion is there any specific guidance you're looking at uh with the you know reorganization or transitioning from city administrator etc um yeah so
where we were in the discussion is that um the council the feedback so far is um to have the personnel committee uh do a little looking more into things and for us to have time between now and the May council meeting but to let um we met with Jenny the personnel met with Jenny
today and went over kind of the transition document and all the projects um and that there are key handoffs to different department heads um so that nothing will be dropped so in this interim to let the department heads you know kind of run with our departments
and be able to do their jobs and just move forward while we're kind of in this transition interim phase um and the idea that council member Zan brought up is we would need clear lines you know of a reporting structure at some point but right now it doesn't seem we would know
what that is when you remove the city administrator based on the orchart that you sent all of us right you've seen it you know how it lines up so just seeing if there was anything we missed in the discussion that we should be having a line of sight to or if you had anything to add in that context yeah so let's
talk practical realities before her um last date uh May 23rd you still need the city administrator and her city code job description or chart etc and because they're city treasurer to perform those functions
so and I'm sorry Mayor F already talked about it but you know you can't we can't just say "All right we won't have a city administrator anybody performing the role of city administrator until we bring on somebody." So it's either even
though I understand the status of uh city administrator Max currently um you know the issue is she still have that title if you need official functions to be done uh that the only the city administrator can do under code job
description personnel policy and org chart the council should decide likely tonight well are we just going to allow her to perform sort of endgame functions that only the administrator can perform uh perform as specified in my memo or do
we want to look at assigning someone else again there there's a lot of options assigning someone else in the city finding an interim so full circle it's either take your current administrator and just if ultimate decisions need to be made she can still
do that or do you assign somebody in the city internally who in the interimm could do it or three do you go out looking for an interimm administrator okay yeah and I and I think that you know based upon everything I know and all the
discussions that we'd be looking at assigning somebody right now because uh you know uh from some of uh the personnel uh talks and talks with you you know um just getting a better education on you know the structure and
the setup uh of a city government with and without administrator versus like a clerk system and um just having time to evaluate that and also evaluate all the uh financial impacts one way or the
other and and and uh just have a little bit of time to help define kind of roles and responsibilities with all these projects with the staff also too you know with the department heads like I say getting feedback from them I think is critical at this time too you know as
as we would move ahead um and and just have some time to weigh all those options and and hear everybody out so I mean I got to get real technical i mean you got to you should decide tonight as the council per my memo who
exactly will at least even if it's limited take on some of those duties and responsibilities of administrator like so for example you couldn't adjourn tonight and then we don't know who's got those endgame city administrator functions you under policy or the
treasurer functions so I think I think you have decide we need you need an individual individuals or well yeah you all decide that individual he's talking about he's talking about authorities and the
treasurer piece of it am I am I mistaken correct yeah because as you have it set up is under the job description and I didn't look at the underlying resolution yeah city administrator treasurer treasur is a side note again i know we
put out our memo a few weeks ago so I'll try to rehash your treasurer is your statute that's your statutory position beyond city clerk city administrators is just a position like many cities have that the city of Niswah created that's not under statute so team legal's
perspective boy we really which um side note one thing we did not look into is if there's a position in the city uh who is the deputy treasurer they can act as treasurer so that's one thing to think about is treasurer duties but side note
I started this discussion with who would precisely should take on the city administrator duties and responsibilities okay that makes sense um uh are those duties limited to only city staff or like can the mayor
um fill any of those roles on an interm or somebody like that yeah so you know one you know we I've given some legal analysis to it two I've had some discussions with the mayor the problem is unlike potentially other
positions in the city so here's the legal hierarchy there's no direct law that says the mayor or another elected official can't take on city administrator duties and responsibilities however you know we've given the opinion
that that is likely a conflict of interest with their mayoral position to take on the duties and responsibilities even if they're not paid because it's not only do we have potential conflict of interest because what's what's one of the problems raw you all collectively as
a city council supervise the city administrator so then and the mayor or a city council member if they take on the position you know even the league of Minnesota cities don't you can't supervise yourself so that is a problem with having an elected official now I
know there may be other examples statewide but in our view that under Minnesota's conflict of interest law you can't have an elected official take on city administrator duties or responsibilities now where would it be different and this is not too helpful for NISWA if you didn't entrench the
city administrator in your city code and give the city administrator all these duties you know there are other things we could do to help supervise staff um so but when it comes to the ultimate duty to exercise the city administrator duty and responsibilities you know it's our opinion that an elected official
can't do it so what are the usual other options cities tap into at least on a real short-term basis assign duties and responsibilities of administrator to a current city employee just on an intern basis andor two try to quickly and
efficiently which uh pursue a third party to take on the interimm duties or responsibilities often it's retired folks so those are the two most viable options to have somebody be city administrator just interm short term for example I mean I'll throw it out there
you're thinking oh my gosh we're in a scramble here is some cities will be like well let's just assign an employee for one or two weeks and let's really roll up our sleeves now that we know the status of the current administrator and figure out what we want to do but let's buy time for two weeks so that's often a
stop gap measure brandon qu a question um we totally hear you on the conflict of interest and and it and it it being best to be a staff but what about having like serving as just a staff liaison in this short
transitory period in the sense so there's one person to go to versus like coming to all five council members right if even if it's just stuff like the monthly department head meeting or touching base once a month with department heads until we sort of figure out the path forward right so there
isn't that full confusion do you have a perspective on that yeah if you know like we have the personnel liaison or like the different council like liaison for the different departments yep so black and white law
says you could do that in a you know I'd be real technical on the language here and you can defer to our memo uh the city council take some action to assign one or two uh city council designate one or two city council members to be a leazison or
representative to one somewhere all departments so that is something you can do so you leave out the city administrator role so that's black and white you can do that again to us that gets a little clunky when electeds are immersed in you know we'd really have to
talk about duty and responsibilities of those one or two council members that it's tough for us to say that we can have elected officials work on day-to-day stuff it should be more feedback some highle stuff but not
actively for example managing employees that because that can cause a problem is you as elected officials taking on that role and the liability uh that comes with that and sometimes staff confusion so full circle you can do it if we assign designes or leaison one or two
and they're just more high level and it's a an outlet for a department head to maybe bounce some things off the one or two designates you know not too much authority outside of an open meeting so the bottom line too I would be I know I'm talking a lot but trying
to rehash a few week ago memo is again to avoid open meeting law issues we also don't want those designes to have too much power because if the council is going to exercise power generally has to be at a meeting so we can't have those designes be empowered to make final
decisions instead you're more a fe you know someone to be a feedback and a leazison no all good information i mean some of this you've shared with me but it's all good for everybody to hear you know and and to kind of go over again to give
every get everyone up to speed do you guys have any questions for Brandon okay yeah so with Yeah with all that being said though you know I I do think tonight though we would want to appoint
a couple interns for those for those roles from current city staff think would be my opinion on the direction that seems that seems um just the the one and only rate decision to move ahead
here with tonight and sor I sorry I just want to be real technical i think your motion would be this if now again I don't know you know it's council's decision you should assign duty responsibilities of city administrator to employees x y and or z and that you
know I can help you with the motion we don't I want to be get way in the weeds you don't want to appoint a current city employees interimm because when you appoint it looks like you're hiring them to new job and it causes confusion for example under your policies and contracts so your literal motion would
be we assign the duties and responsibility of city administrator to employees X Y and or Z and then the other secondary part you know again as you're all thinking of the full-fledged motion who is that then you should
consider also an additional pay um bump for that that we can talk about if you want to talk about the economics so you don't have to do the pay thing that's your option but something to consider okay all right one moment
thanks Brandon okay um I'm foreseeing at least two possibly three motions here to start with the first one um if I may Madame Mayor um like to make a motion to assign duties of city administrator and
treasurer to Kiki Lindbury uh effective tonight immediately i'll second it do we have any discussion or additional questions all those in favor signify by
saying I i opposed i thought you were going to chime in on this one all right didn't hear you wait how who said I joe Jesse Bruce okay motion carries compensation um so the second of the three that I
have in mind now and I will defer the third one to our mayor um second one in regards to the compensation piece um I think we need to discuss that so we are aligned always look this way and there's uh
always Jenny to uh ring with but do you have recommendations on figuring out a compensation in a time like this yep so there are three things to think about um one is some specific dollar per
hour differential um you know a few dollars an hour another approach is to pick some finite percentage above that employees current base pay um you know a range could be anywhere 5 to 10% above their current
pay the third approach and this is the level of detail I didn't go into not knowing the council would go there is you take that current employees pay grade who just got assigned you compare to the city administrator pay grade and you try
to slot them in at some step that's closest to but not less than but at least higher uh than their current scale so the fourth approach I mean I'll throw this out there uh it it's not ideal but you could take a motion tonight to uh
make effective uh that let me clarify that the city council uh takes a motion to increase the pay for the employee assigned the in on an interim basis due to the responsibilities of administrator but the specific pay rate
that be effective today will be determined at a future council meeting so that is another approach if you all think we need some more homework to do so it's either finite dollar amount finite percentage amount three try to slot them in somewhere in the city
administrator scale that it's least higher than where they're at or fourth is punt and we'll do the homework on those three numbers and come back to take council action at a future meeting punt you're a football guy huh
or soccer yeah yeah yeah maybe we'll take a minute to calculate some math uh question I have for you in regards to is there a time variable that needs to be factored into this next motion in regards to compensation sir would take
effect tonight but you said we could Yeah the future and backdate it to tonight basically okay yeah can I get Sorry counselors yeah I would I would say that might be a good option it'll it'll allow us to Yeah
brandon did you hear that yeah you want to do the punt motion yeah can we Because it's like we feel like we're scram everyone's scrambling we don't have the data we don't want to make a rushed or informed uh motion here in fairness to everyone
but yeah we could backdate it correct yeah i want to be get way in the weeds under Minnesota's public purpose expenditure law generally you can't go retroactive pay with pay increases but I gave you the motion unless there's an understanding between
um you know the the city and the employee which you're directing that we're going to increase your pay effective today we both agree to that but then we'll just figure it out later so full circle back to it your motion should be something to the effect of act
this is that um the city council uh approves a motion that the um and I'm just pausing here that effective April 16th 2025 um Kiki and I'm sorry I forgot her last
name uh will be paid uh will receive an increase in pay while she's performing the duties and responsibilities of city administrator however the specific increase in pay will be determined at a future city
council meeting kiki before we get down that path I probably should have asked we probably should have asked you're willing to take on these duties figure as much um and are you comfortable with that
proposed motion in regards to our commitment to being able to effectively back pay in regards to the date of today April 16th yes um for the duration that this that this
is assigned okay all right that being said Madame Mayor I'd like to make a motion to uh increase the compensation for Kiki Limbury uh effective April from the effective date of April 16th 2025
um for a determined amount that we'll determine later uh for these assigned duties i'll second it do we have any additional discussion or questions
should this be something figured out within the next week or ASAP obviously Brandon and yeah I mean we should we can get moving on with you know getting her current pay rate getting the scales and doing some assessment likely with the
personnel leaison on the council okay so the personnel first takes a stab at it and then sends it to council to approve yeah well yeah I'd recommend Yeah personnel look into it and you can consult with us and then come back and take a motion and vote at the next council meeting which could be a special
one or your next regular a special one okay yeah we will yeah so all right all right so all those in favor signify by saying I I I motion carries um Okay and then I Did you have anything else i
am good I think okay um I have a motion that I would like to make um I would like to move that uh the following components of city administrator Jenny Max's voluntary resignation with the city of Nisa be approved effective today
April 16th 2025 uh one city administrator Jenny Max will remain employed with the city through May 23rd 2025 which is the city administrator city administrator Max's last date of employment with the city uh through May
23rd city administrator Jenny Max will utilize all remaining vacation time until all remaining vacation time is exhausted um city administrator Jenny Max will work exclusively remotely through May 23rd 2025 in which she will
be on call and available for phone calls and emails only uh myself and council member Joe Hall are designated as personnel to coordinate uh with city administrator Max and legal counsel on this transition
second do we have any discussion or questions all right all those in favor signify by saying I i i opposed i all right motion carries
um Brandon do you have anything in closing or No we we have homework to do with personnel so I have nothing else nothing further okay sounds good thank you for joining we appreciate it yeah thank you i'm sorry about the poorations
by on this so yeah I arrived thank you thank you thank you um old business we have none uh next are council and liaison reports i don't have any updates on my end Mark so you asked for my input earlier on the
on parks and everything like that so My assumption is everybody read the letter that Tom Pearson the city attorney sent us about the legal what legally the city can do for fundraising um so we know that the city council city staff cannot actively
fund raise we can accept donations that's it um the city park is in need of funds to replace certain things as Amber said the playground um also we're looking at
the ice arena the hockey rink um we have safety issues with it with the lighting the concrete we have a cooling chilling system that hasn't worked for at least seven years or more
um currently right now as we state it's the best outdoor ice in the area um so the only options that the city has is to get the funds to get this done to
replace repair the infrastructure is that somebody steps forward with a big generous check or a couple of people do uh two uh somebody in the public comes forward and says "Hey we we've formed a fundraising committee for
you because the city council cannot set up a fundraising committee." Um the other one would be the lost local option sales tax i'm not a I'm not a tax person uh I've always opposed lost because it
seemed like when a local option sales tax came in uh municipalities kept them forever and still do um there's very narrow guidelines now with the local option sales tax i think it would behoove us
to get input from the local residents the taxpaying residents to see if that is an option they want us to pursue um if we don't come up with funds for the city park and what needs to be done we won't have a city park that's plain and
simple so this is something we need to start looking at and residents need to know where we're at on that that's all I have i have a couple questions maybe with that Mark or Tom you know um like you go over to the warming house right
now and there's a list of names and donors from the last go around when all this park work was done and stuff does anybody know how that may have been done last time and as a council as a park group um can we go out and ask people to
form a group to do this or or we just have to just sit here and say we wish somebody in the community steps forward and leave it as that or you know I because yeah obviously something was
done last time i if if How do we do that if I may if I can just get a head nod or disagreement but from Amber was that a Lions was that a Lions initiative in part okay okay
so so to to to further council member Freley's point we are calling on the public to take that take this initiative seriously and support us
um we've all utilized that park in one fashion or another as long as if anybody's lived here long enough uh you can see the amount of children that are in that park the effect it has on them the events that that our parks and recck department and Amber and her team put on
there and we just went through them at a budget workshop meeting um at 5 that there is a sincere amount of activities not just for our youth but our adults and having that piece be the center of a
community a recreationbased community I might add is imperative and in regards to trying to be fiscally conservative with taxpayer dollars I in response to potentially decreasing the park's budget to be able to help
lower the tax burden on the local tax base here actually asked asked Amber our parks direct uh director in regards to what type of effect would that have on the community and her response was pretty sound devastating it'd be
devastating and I completely agree so we are I will also we have to look at this we're a tourist industry we're a tourist town we have people that come here and stay to visit Niswah
and you will see one parent they come here specifically and and I have I know people that come here specifically where one parent will bring their small children over to the park to play while the other one shops in the shops and
then they switch halfway through it um if the city park were to go just think of how that will affect businesses people will say "Well it won't affect my business." I'll tell you it will so we're making a plea I guess to the
local citizens that's all I have i agree that that park is very very important to the area here for all the people visiting the tourists and local people as well it's an important thing got to keep it up yep
i agree i have blood spent there i lost my two front teeth at that rink when I was a young man but uh it's hopefully the public will hear this and uh we can try to continue to collaborate and encourage folks behind the scenes private citizens and businesses so um I
wish everybody in the community a happy Easter this upcoming Sunday and uh that's all I have yeah we got to do everything and anything to keep the park going and maintain it and make it better good um do you have anything else for
your update Bruce do you have anything for your update Jesse joe nope all right um just a few announcements and upcoming meeting dates this Friday is the Crowing County Board of Appeals and Equalization uh
meeting here at 1 p.m and then our standard commission meetings and we're doing our first um spring town hall on May 13th at the community center at 5:00 p.m um and that is it in terms of announcements and upcoming meeting dates
do we have a motion to adjurnn nice so move second oops oh go ahead sure yeah the public comment was earlier in the meeting but are the city wants to fix the park oh
Amber do or Amber or Mark do you want to comment on that i can give you a ballpark figure i h have you seen any of the of the were you at any of the concepts uh the open okay so th this has
been ongoing for um four years almost five um we came up with we we knew there the the playground equipment was coming near end it's life expectancy down we were looking at the ice arena the hockey rink
we used to have two with boards we now just have one because we couldn't replace the old boards that were there put the money into it money has been going into the chilling system that does not work um so that has to be removed the chiller system has to be removed because we
don't want the potential of breaks in the lines and and the glycol leaking in so we were looking at that we decided to do a a master plan um with the guidance of our park and Rex
Amber and and the committee um we put it out to the public we had open houses they came up with three designs um through that of everybody coming in and looking at the designs it was narrowed down to one there's various things in
there some things could be dropped um but to the one thing we were looking at is is the the hockey rink that's there right now is to have it covered not a
building just just covered reason why is because instead of a 20-year guarantee we can have a 50-year guarantee on the on the concrete it will help keep the ice stay longer because of the northern because of the sun also it could be used
year round we could have um in the summer it could be used for uh playing basketball other things we could have um I know the A&W they do their car show now every year possibility of being able to put some of the vehicles over there
too we could have fans in there um all sorts of things that could happen there in the summer it wouldn't just be used in the winter along with that this we've we've have looked at adding some pickle ball courts and so
forth the the number that we have been told and have been looked at is approximately $10 million for everything that needs to be done at the park it's a lot of money yes okay so um when I first came on to the
the council we didn't have a CIP capital improvement plan so the what what the council did last time is we started a CIP for each department putting money aside so that the maintenance and stuff can be taken
care of in the future because that's a that's a big thing a lot of municipalities don't look at that they look at we want to build this but they don't think about how to take care of it and put it so yes that $10 million would be the would be the um to get the improvements or and the
replacements that we need for the park we we're already starting to put money aside for the maintenance and upkeep of it anybody else i know this isn't the time for question answers and I understand that but this is a very important I'm very passionate about it
um can I interject just because there seems to be questions about this um at the March there was a workshop um where I rolled through some of the history on this so you can always go back on city YouTube um look at March we had a
presentation on it and then the parks commission in October we had a presentation on it and how to donate and different ways you can donate um otherwise on the city ofnis.gov gov website under fundraising it spells out each of those amenities and projected
costs and things like that so um there are some resources out there for those that do have questions and then obviously you can contact me anytime right and and as you can see these are this is a conceptual right here on the wall um we
want it'll be the replacement and in a way improving it to be more of a center spot for people when they come you know um if you ever have any questions you can reach out to me because I am the
leazison with the parks and Amber is very good she'll sit down ask you know ask any question um but I I think at this point we're at a plea you know we've had a lot of things that the city
has had to get going um so this has been put on the back burner for too long that's all I have to say anything else from anyone before we motion to adjurnn okay do we have a motion to adjurnn hold
on one more thing how many people have been to the newest park within city does anybody know where the new park is has anybody heard of the new park i I have Lakota blood and I still cannot
pronounce half of the chipa names out there so um if you go down Camp Lincoln Road it was land that was tax forfeit we ended up with it begrudgingly I'd say we had to put a bathroom in it we have a bathroom out there and we have what
close to 2 miles of trail out there right now okay um now I I have close to 2 miles of trails on my property but my wife and I go out to that just to take a walk because it's it's different it's beautiful it's it's hole in the days right there so if you haven't been out
there it's it's packed and it's easy i have a lot of problems with walking i have a disability but it it's an easy path for me to walk on for the most part i've talked to Amber about some a few things but we'll get we'll deal with that but if you
haven't been out there go out there okay do we have a motion to adjurnn so moved second all those in favor signify by saying I i i okay meeting is adjourned thank you everyone take care