##VIDEO ID:XZ6s0zAcLAM## which how we were going to do it but uh I really have no okay are you standing Are you standing for the Pledge of Allegiance just wa you get ahead of the gun oh here we go H good evening everybody um I'd like to uh call the regular city council meeting to order for January 13 2025 uh please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for all uh good evening we have a a few guests here this evening and I just would like to uh welcome Kathy and Bill uh here from the Habitat for Humanity it's really nice to see you guys here this evening along with some of our city employees um I'd like to just uh announce protocol uh the city council members are here to serve the city of peers we expect respectful conduct at all times slander or inappropriate language will not be tolerated please speak only when addressed one person at a time each speaker has a f minute time limit uh thank you for your cooperation so the next thing would be our approval of uh the minutes um if I could get approval for the minutes for January 6th 2025 make that motion Gary makes a motion I'll second it uh Lynn seconds the motion all in favor say I I oppose uh motion carried for uh the minutes uh next would be the approval of the agenda um is there any additions or changes that anybody would like to I have one change okay if we can remove Planning and Zoning uh we did not meet tonight okay so we'll take off that be number six so we can take off the Tony Meer and all that sign replacement stuff yep okay scratch that uh any additions okay if I could get approval of the the agenda I'll make the motion to approve the agenda with the one subtraction uh Lyn makes the approval the agenda second that okay second motion all in favor say I I oppos a motion Carri so the first thing um we have is uh we have Scott here here s from the fire department to speak good evening Mr Mayor members of council uh tonight within your packets there is a resignation letter that I'd like to present to Council in addition to our our report um So within your packets Jacob Mr Jacob singer has submitted resignation he has been with the department since December of 2015 so he just completed his N9 years of service with the Department um unfortunately he has decided to turn his turn in his resignation and with that we'd like to thank him for his years of service as well as dedication to the department um he was definitely an asset and um provided a lot of service work to our departments we'd like to recognize that as well in addition to his resignation so with that on behalf of the department I'd like to request um presenting his resignation letter for approval I I was just going to say to you that uh uh it was really nice having them with you guys with the fireman you guys are very valuable to the community and and Jake is as well um that that brings it to 29 then right do we have 30 have 30 yes currently we have 30 firefighters with this resignation it'll be 29 on the roster um I believe the the standard um that was put in place a number of years back and Todd might have a little more information in regards to that um but 26 we typically like to see around 30 members just du to call load as well as availability time of day things like that as well sure do does anybody have any questions at all for Scott uh could I get a motion to accept the uh Jake's resignation that motion let's see Sarah makes the motion Gary seconds the motion uh all in favor say I I oppos uh motion carried that it Scott all right thank you thank you uh the next item we have is uh we have Kathy and Bill here from Habitat for Humanity um and I think Kathy would like to come up and speak yes so we call that the hot seed Kathy just I will be as hot as I can um so thank you um members of the city council and the mayor for inviting us to talk about Habitat for Humanity um I thought I'd just give you like a 30,000 elevated story about what what habitat does in Morrison County um and I'll try to make that five minutes you know fairly quick so Bill's handing giving you a handout so habitat has been in Morrison County and affiliate since 1998 um the first house was built in 1999 so we've done um a house every year for 25 years with the exception of uh 2020 the co year um we've done three homes and peers we have an open open applications now and it all depends on who applies and where they want to live you know it's all dependent on that so um just kind of this handout and you can review it um at another time too um we use volunteers discounted contractors um the labor is um we had 206 hours of Free Labor from Wabash which is a Manufacturing Company in little Falls that does those uh uh trailers um they paid their employees to come and do our last house um we're working on a school project and would love to you know incorporate the peer school at some time into a build so I'll explain that that's why we're here tonight um there's just some examples of the homes that we've built and of course we all know about how um children do better in school having a stable home environment um I get calls from past homeowners all the time about how much better their children do in school once they have a room of their own a safe decent home um to live in and um just something to call their own the stability just brings about a better educational uh format for them and of course um volunteers matter we we take pride in all the volunteers and there's just a little slide 10 just shows you how many hours of volunte tourism and how much it saves um on the house that we're trying that we're building um it's been challenging the past few years um in 2019 we built a house for $75 a square foot and the last house is 167 a square foot and we all know there's multiple reasons for that so um the state housing tax credit contribution that QR code in the corner of slide 12 is just an unbelievable resource that any business or taxpayer can go to Minnesota housing and we have the next house as our next project and contribute instead of paying your Minnesota Department of Revenue taxes put those dollars into Minnesota housing and you get a tax credit up to 85% of that so instead of paying the Department of Revenue you can pay and keep it local and pay um Minnesota housing and then our habitat affiliate gets those dollars after we've completed the project so um there's more to come on that um so please ask me any questions about that but for tonight so what I'm here to talk about is this Greater Minnesota small tier 2 Ci's housing aid package and I just highlighted on page and this is the program guide the RFP is coming out like in the next couple weeks so the city um has to submit the Grant and it can be used on page five for qualifying projects so you'll see there emergency rental assistance and then bullet two is financial support to nonprofit affordable housing providers in their mission to provide safe affordable housing and then it talks about you know affordable housing development so what happened is Morrison County received $112,000 last year they will again this year last year they gave the $112,000 to Habitat so what we did we put in an aging in place program so we actually just helped a peers resident with her trailer house skirting because she didn't you know she was lowincome senior citizen so with that grant money we installed the skirting to save her utility bills for the winter um they can apply through our habitat we've done like bathroom remodels so senior citizens can stay in their home so we added that new project with that Morrison County Statewide housing money and so what I'm here tonight for is to when RFP comes out I can work with whoever from your city you know wants to help me write it and this is not going to be like a grant that's like Intense or anything um it'll be based on population um and I'm talking to the city administrator in Little Falls as well because it's for all cities 10,000 and under the amount I don't know but even if we can get a few to buy a lot in peers or or do you know get a house again done here would go towards you know a affordable housing so um I'm thinking it's an easy Grant I'd be happy to work with you if you know and I'm not saying you have to give it to Habitat that would be great if you could you know apply for it and then turn it over to us and we could do more Aging in place as well we could do depending on the amount of of money that it is so um I was Bill and I actually last week were talking with Sharon Bell at um the F&M Bank and Pearce to help to help Finance some of these homes because it's being challenging USDA ran out of money in Minnesota last year which is unbelievable we were using them to finance our homes at 1% interest which was great we don't have the luxury of that anymore so F&M Bank is going to help us out with that so it's a that'll be an awesome partnership as well so um this is just for your information if we you know if there's something else in affordable housing that you want to do certainly talk to me about it but I would certainly let's apply for it and get some funds because um it's out there and I when the RFP comes out whoever you if it's Laura that we you know that we work with to submit it I'd be happy to do most of the work but you have to hit the submit button I can't do it um I think that uh you know I think it sounds like a good thing to reach out for and I know we're all very busy with everything we do every day and I know Laura's very busy too but if if somebody wants to uh take it on with h Kathy I mean I don't know if that's something you would want to do Laura or unless one of the council members you're fine with that I can yeah okay so it would I think it would be really nice um I did see something in the record uh this week so you guys guys have partnered with Little Falls with the school to kind of like you're talking about maybe you're trying to do with peers as well so the Little Falls school district has three a 3 Acre plot of land that they're not doing anything with and they want and it's right across from the high school right to the South there so they want their carpentry trades education built up better so they we can build Eight houses in that um lot of land and all of the carpentry students could walk across the school and help build habitat houses so we're yeah we're in the beginning stages of talking about doing that as well which would be great to you know emphasize the trades because not everybody is college material and we need people in plumbing and electrical and carpentry right yep yeah thanks for asking yeah it looks like it's a good effort and good good programs yeah uh anybody else questions questions okay okay thank you Kathy appreciate it yeah you're aome do we need a motion for Laura to work on that uh does somebody want to make I don't think we do but we can if you want to be safe I don't think we need a motion do we we don't need a motion for Laura to work on that I don't think I don't think so no okay uh the next item we have is uh an exempt permit for the Pioneer wrestling club for uh uh 322 of 25 if I could get a motion for that approval make that motion uh Gary makes motion I'll second it Lyn second the motion all in favor say I I opposed a motion carried for the exemp permit for the Pioneer wrestling club uh then we move on to uh the park board update and uh we have actually have our our two new park board members here we got Gary and ly and uh so I don't know if you guys if you guys want to give an update or uh how however you want to do it Lyn G do you want to start or you want me to uh go ahead um so we met um last week on Monday as a group and uh discussed various different things um one of them that we talked about upcoming is parking expansion that that needs to be brought kind of to the Forefront with the new 18 we need to make sure we have enough parking for everybody so we're working on looking into that um another thing we talked about was um a billboard um sounds like that might have been talked about before four um we just want to bring that back to the table and get that information and start looking at that as well um we are also moving forward with interviews um first one was tonight in regards to the two new positions for the supervisor and then the supervisor assistant am I missing anything Gary those are the big ones oh I think those are good Zack will bring a couple other things um during his update as well so that billboard yeah we did and I was talking to Lynn a little bit earlier we did discuss that last year so I think uh Donnie was looking into Gary he was looking into some of the permitting and stuff like that so Donnie could help out with stuff like that it'd be nice to have something up which is going to be really hard to do but up for our grand opening but like to get it up and going yeah so that'd be good uh the parking expansion um when I looked at this I didn't know for sure what it was but um we were and Zach would know we were talking prior to uh it would be on the north side of the road going into the clubhouse there's all those trees are dying over there along the river that whole area there um we were I thought we were going to take those trees down and actually Todd you were there then were we going to take those trees down and make that expand the parking lot into that area I know we we mix the idea of moving a parking lot like further to the West right there some of that cuz people do park there already but you're talking more that of the I think so I think we're going to have Zach who's going to work on that this winter taking the trees down from what I remember and we had a couple other ideas that we brought to the table okay that we're looking at also okay what are do you know what are those I'm just curious um one thing that was talked about um and this would be you know for a lot of parking would be to move the existing um playground area to the other side closer to the swimming area fced area where parents actually see their kids whether they were you know playing in theground or swimming it'd be a lot safer it'd be a fenced in area and where the current playground is we could turn that into a whole big parking lot great and then potentially in front of the shelters we would Mark that as no parking to make that safer for people crossing going back and forth nice yeah that I think we we were talking about that too but that's a good idea the only thing which might not mean anything is that uh we have to look at the flood flood zones so that's why we're looking into yeah he might not be able to put the park the stuff over there because it's in the flood zone area but I don't know who knows so so that's great um so uh as far as the interviews um I was talking to Donnie this this week a little bit and then I did talk to I discussed it with Laur as well um we we were kind of thinking that maybe we should hire the the director first and have the director have some input in on who the assistant's going to be since they have to they have to work together um and that way uh if if I was going to be the director I'd like to have some input on who the assistant the assistant would be and I think it's only fair for the assistant to know who their boss is their boss is going to be but I think we discussed that if you don't mind me saying we discussed that and we thought that would be a good option as well we thought that we the time frame didn't allow for for for us to be able to do that is what I it's a timing issue you know this this director that comes on they might have to give a month notice and then we're a month behind again in terms of interviews and doing those things right and in any other job if the director leaves the assistant may not right you know what I mean it's not that you're always going to have that choice on who's under you yeah okay I just wanted to bring that up because I know they got to work together and I thought well you know maybe it'd be a nice idea if they did it but I I see the whole being a month behind that yeah we have all the interviews set up already so I think we should continue with what we have okay but just that's just a thought that I had okay awesome um okay so the next are you okay with you good yep good uh next thing we have then is uh the treasures uh report um for the month at the end of December the balance in the checkbook was 3,469 25843 fantastic I get a motion to make the motion to approve the treasures report L miix motion to approve it second that Gary seconds the motion all in favor say I I opposed uh motion carried for the treasur report approval then we have the claims report next uh claims for the month of December were $299,500 a department updates so we have uh Zach here from the superintendent Park good evening Council mayor um few updates helped us Eric with snow last week um we've been working on cutting some trees down the dead ones that are on the new nine and the old nine and in the park where we're they're ones that have died in the past um I dealt with uh getting some in the last week or two also dealing with my uh fertilizer guy for chemicals and fertilizer for next year working out a program on what what we need to order now that the greens are established changing that over to new program and kind of figuring that out so I've been working on that in the last week and I'll be continuing working on that over the next couple weeks usually don't get the stuff in until I don't have to worry about the chemicals freezing anymore so um and then we're looking at with the park board we talked about about trying to update our carts so we'd like to work on trying to sell six of our oldest carts take that money and then purchase new carts with those whatever that gets us if it's two carts if it's three carts four carts if we can sell them for enough start high and we'll go from there um but I probably won't start selling them till it warms up I want to go through them all and changed oil so but i' just like to get that approval so that when we decide to post them I'll work with luron if we're to post them on Facebook or the city website or both or all that so that is the parkboard recommendation is it okay um so if I could get a motion for uh selling three carts and then buying the equivalent dollar amount six six I'm sorry selling six and then use that money equivalent to buy I'll make that motion Gary makes a motion I'll second it ly seconds a motion all in favor say I I I opposed motion carried and then that'll be put on social media so the whole city or everybody in surrounding will have the ability great that is awesome Yep and and the idea is we'll have then 12 of those same Years cards left so and then kind of do the same thing over the next few years so we can get rid of they'll be at 22 years old by then if we wait another two years so just start working on that process of getting those old ones out of there I would be replacing them with 2019 cards is what I'd be and then it you know then hopefully we can uh work on our dedicated funding for the golf cart fund actually and then have enough money in that at some point to be able to utilize that to buy Cards too I mean that's that's ideally the yeah with with 60 carts there's going to be a basically a revolving door of selling some constantly or you're going have a huge purchase all of a sudden so we have to figure out as a city what's the best and how we want to move forward right um I got a question for you Zach on the on the the nuke or the $100,000 you're spent on the golf carts um I think in that the from the easygo guy he had in the as far as the warranty went it was like uh um it's a they're warranting non-wearable Parts I think if you do you got that in front of you by any chance I don't have it in front of me May can can you read what he's warring where did he put it it's on the second page there is it on the second yep under notes non wearable so one year Parts warranty no labor so on any parts on any part that's I mean I would assum many parts it says parts so it doesn't say specific Parts good um I guess it Sayes no no to non-wearable parts so like belts something that is wearing out tires he's not going to include those I know but every part wears out after some yes but you're talking parts that you know what I mean could I I I just want to ask you a favor I I'd like that more clarification on the war waranty on what is exactly a wearable what is what is what's deemed a wearable part and what is I can ask him on that question but I would be pretty confident he's talking belts I know but I you know how I'll ask I'll ask him I'm just going to give you it now and then I can tell you later but yeah it's going to be probably belts I'm trying to think what's on those easy go well Tires Tires TIR understand to tires um bearings probably not but I'll I can get that I'll contact you and I can get back to you on that one fuel filters Stu like that yeah fuel fil there's air filter you know but you know what I mean Todd it there's a there's a but anything that has a consumption value that when you do maintenance it has a life yeah it's okay just I want more a little more claric if you could have them list actually what is a wearable part it's probably easier to list a wearable part than a non-wearable part but um okay yeah I can get that question and then I you're okay with that Gary right if he wants to ask yeah yeah and then I can just I'll just send an email or do you want bring to another coun no just send yeah that'd be awesome actually if you just email update you guys on what he said oh yeah just easier just to forward it versus trying to read it all off it's a long list yeah you want to do that um and then with that I guess I'd like to move forward with purchasing I guess from the easy gol if that's what we're moving forward on I would make the motion to make the purchase for 27 cards for $100,000 from easygo I'll second Gary motion Sarah seconds motion all in favor say I I I opposed uh motion carried and that's all I have unless you guys have something for me and I will contact uh Ryan tomorrow and get that information on what's considered a wearable part perfect it might be a day or two before he gets back to yep thanks you check into the flood zone thing in terms of whether or not that's a possibility of moving can you look into that a little bit for playground Neil talked about it but I don't know if he was going to look into it specifically or work with Neil on it yeah I can talk to Neil Neil Neil's pretty that huh on the new n we were allowed like 5,000 ft to take out of the flood plane oh we were yeah that was in the flood plane oh that was in the back yeah yeah they they removed that yeah that actually got removed we talked about possibly finding out if we can do that over there they actually we we didn't request that they actually removed that we that that back you're talking about in the South End by the the the four-wheeler yeah that was actually they just took it off we didn't request it it just they just it just wasn't on the on the sheet I don't remember what happened with that that was in FL less 5000 they change every time they do that flood plane they changes so that was in it prior and then it was just from what I remember reviewing it it was just taken out we looked at it we didn't request have it taken know it actually was supp have Zach work with Neil yeah and then with with with all that said that doesn't affect that any I just want a verification on so want to check if there's a flood plane if we decide to put the parking lot where the current would it be an issue playground would that be an issue and then if we move the playground over to like the Beer Garden area is there I'm guessing is the idea I would put it on the same side as the the swimming yeah so the beer garden yes the beer garden is just it beat so probably to the west of that yes um if that's going to be a problem if that floods as well so those two spots playground there parking and then parking over there okay y just so we know our options yeah we do typically if something's already if if they have if it's in there and they make it a flip plane you're okay because it's grandfathered in it's adding new stuff and I know certain things like a cement pad's different than a building yep and all those things too so I will uh talk with Neil hopefully together okay so next we have the Public Works uh director here all right good evening Council and mayor okay so kind of go over and update uh some stuff what we've been doing here lately um if it hasn't been snowing out we've been doing a lot of servicing uh all of our equipment so we've gone through everything now except for the blue New Holland tractor and then um the sweeper we cleaned it all up and found a bunch of holes in the bo box uh the hopper box that holds all the dirt so we're going to grind it out and Patch the holes up which that'll probably take us a couple weeks putting around getting that patched back up the blue tractor I think just needs to be serviced there might be a couple little parts inside that need to get replaced on it but other than that that thing should be good to go um the plow truck's been doing great uh the loader and the new plow have been working well good the last few times we've been out with it that thing it works really well cuz at this point now we have the plow truck goes to the east side of town plows the West Side gets done with the loader so essentially these guys are probably a little more shocked because they get plowed out a little bit earlier than normal uh but that that that sequence has been going pretty good um the skating rinks they've been in good shape here this year um we did get all of our new Street Lighting on and going we did have a little glitch with one of them down there but um design Electric came in and monkey around with the head up there and it works good great I do have one pull scheduled to get pulled out on Peter Avenue we left it in there just to have some light down there so they'll Minnesota par will be there to disconnect it and uh pull the pole out of the ground um and then when they do come they're going to go we're going to go over to the golf course I know Don had asked about that parking area by the front door and all that stuff there is some underground wire that runs there I don't know where it goes but when they come we'll hook up some of their stuff and see what direction it goes to I honestly think it goes to that pump down there but I'm not 100% sure we'll have to just stump it and see where it goes I was I think told that that power for that P okay okay I remember but yeah I I said I looked at our map we had I'm like hm I don't know so we're going to check it and find out other than that I think for the most part it was clear over there to do something with if you wanted to and then um some upcoming things we'll be taking down to Christmas lights this week um we'll maintain our skaing rinks I got the last third of Main Street snow to remove yet which I'll get on that tomorrow get that out of there from fire hall down to S um um I did look into the build board thing that you guys were talking about um I did call the county they have no issue with a billboard going there I called mindat um nothing I just said we'd put it up by our fence I didn't know really where and I thought maybe that's the best that keeps it out of the ditch keeps it in our area neither one of them have a problem with it so that's great it is um and they didn't give me like sizewise didn't really matter the only question he had is if it wasn't advertising something for town they would have to do something else but it's advertising for our golf course and they said it's fine so perfect yeah that is that's great thank you okay and then uh that's it that's all I got if you guys got anything for me oh the mmua thing I did want to go to that but due to some scheduling conflicts on my end of it uh I won't be able to go to so maybe next year I'll look into it again I did go two years ago it is a good thing to go back and get the refresher on all that jazz so this year just won't work out but and we'll schedule her up right next year so they have they hold it roughly the same time every year so other than that that's all I have you guys have anything for me nope that's good thanks Z thank you I me thank you okay so then we have uh Council updates I think you kind of covered your stuff Lynn unless you got anything else I don't I don't have City administrator or yeah you're next yep oh so yeah okay do you what do you have I do have a little bit I have that I've been completing the year end items so 1099 W2s reporting for the Auditors tip year end and quarterly report along with um renewing memberships one recent one was our peers area our pack membership bra so that's been done it was $200 um our audit is scheduled for February 24th and 28th and Lyn did speak on the applications I just want to state that we had 20 applications for the director six for the assistant we started the interview process tonight that's been going well the hiring committee is been working really well with so and then at our last meeting I also wanted to just lay out that we did do our Oaths for our Mayor John city clerk is s fighton council members Lynn Eagan and Gary Berg and we will complete the treasurer case dangle when she returns to us so and then I just wanted to State our annual designations I was kind of asked we did approve these but we just needed to bring them that are official depository is Farmers and Merchant State Bank Unity Bank official newspapers Morrison County record um and our acting mayor is Lynn which just those were some items somebody had asked me about recently so and then lastly I do have Tony's PTO payout which is 189.5 hours at her pay of $25 63 it came out to $4,850 48 before taxes so thought that that should be yeah we and we should we need to vote on that that would be given paying her off for PTO PTO time yep which she deserves um so if I could unless any discussion Sarah guys good so if I get a motion to pay Tony's PTO time of $4,000 85048 I'll make that motion sah makes the motion second it Gary seconds the motion I'll say I I opposed uh motion carried to pay off Tony's p thank you that was all I had well we covered the council updates already so in the L of Donnie not being here I'll make a second it all the favor say I I opposed motion carried wa you put me on I just suppos to