This conference will now be recorded. The agenda motion to approve the agenda. Second. All in favor? I oppose. Motion's passed. Uh regular meeting minutes from the July 16th meeting.
I'll make a motion to approve the regular minutes from the July 15th meeting. I'll second. All in favor? I I oppose motions pass. monthly financial report and accounts
payable. You can see there's a Keller Bartman and a Nicholas Livestock Baitment payment on here been transferred in and I believe that's only thing that's trestle repair
and trestle repair that comes out of our budget. Uh, no. Good catch you, Lindsay. Is it coded under EDA or did you just grab their own 421
Rochester sales tax, right? Get it out. Yeah, it's just a little bunch there. I was wondering how much that cost. It looks nice, but give us all money back. It's the parkboard pay for their stuff.
I'll make a motion we accept the monthly cavity with um research to be done on the trestle repair. I'll second. All in favor? I motion's passed.
Um, old business tulip tree marketing. So, our online advertising is out there. Has anybody ever seen something? I did. I was like, I saw him. I didn't think it was good or bad.
In your packet, there are the three advertisements that they have listed. I saw one for the citizen vote as well. Um, so yeah, they're there for you to to see and they will keep adding. They working with Miranda. You can see the new one
that's coming out is the not the fair but the covered bridge festival will be highly advertised uh today. Oh, what's the name? Later runs the Holly. was in today and she saw
advertisements for it and she was kind of like where did those come from? So what I'll do is our next meeting I will get statistics that I can share with you working with we did give her
the uh Facebook access she did give us. So there's not really a lot to where is Holly in that situation. Just trying to get people No, excuse me. Holly gave them access to their uh website.
That's what it was. Yeah. So she's been in contact with them. The festival website. Yeah. The festival website. So yeah, that's up. But I will get stats at our next meeting uh with what's going on there.
Can you see the stats, Miranda? Um, probably like like is traffic going up or when did it start? Pretty short time, right? One month. Yeah,
that was approved by council. April 3rd. Interesting. So is strictly for a right that's illegal. Can you borrow? I think I think it is borrowed. should be before
I think it was borrowed but don't because I think we borrowed from ourselves borrowed from the major fund loan. Yeah. Which means we're borrowing from one pot. That was the April 3rd 2025 meeting.
Yeah. And fund. So where would it be made up then? Yeah, we can get it back. plan to take our money research. Yeah. What other funding could they use? Let's see. That Joan voted for. I voted.
But I think I think the whole thing behind it was that was that we were Good job. Oh, we'll get it back. It's just Wait, do we have any like sort of time frame for like one that's coming back then? Yeah. Maybe we need to buy something else. don't know
it's not listed in the meeting what the loan inter so I guess that would be the clarification if it is a loan when is it coming back so that we could have it spend again and I can see the stats for those posts
they've done two three four of them um they're not performing over average by any means. They're reaching about the same audience that
mine do. We should have another person look at that. I think that opinion may be slightly biased. Anytime you spark a little fire, that helps. There you go.
It's funny. So, I don't I don't know. I guess I would say because it's not that their posts aren't well written because they're clearly well done. I think it's just that how do you draw people to our page like we only have who we have on our page.
So, we kind of need to add something where they can tag and have a contact or whatever. I think that's a good idea. marketing to our residents currently because that's who follows the city of Zimrona, right? Because we're posting this stuff, but then we're also posting that streets are
going to be repaired or we're flushing water lines on the h west side of town today. So, I guess I don't know, Kurt, if you want to ask them how do they recommend we boost our following, maybe that would be helpful.
But we still had many years ago, but maybe it still exists. Something where you like they had like a paper token that was like you can go down to one of the stores in town and and you could use that. You didn't have to use your own money. Do we still do something
like that or something like that? Does that something still exist? I don't know. Through Zeba, they do something. they do something because I'm wondering like I mean that would be a way I mean we used to do that with at the DQ like oh you can get a cake if you share it and then you could you'd get tons of people sharing it
because they want some cake and if we had something like that in the city that was worth sharing that everybody want yeah like where they would be like well if I do this and then I don't know if you we used to draw out of a cup but I mean there's probably better ways to do
it but you know and then that person you know random person gets Do they have a only in some page too or do you just have that? That's Instagram, right? Well, I don't know if that's what it's called. They have like a Yeah, they have a where they use that as
their hashtag. Meet me in the only in the Yeah, they have meet me in the No, there isn't an only. What did we have? That's Instagram. That's what our Instagram City of Zimbro page is called. Got it. So that one's still and they don't
they're not doing anything on that. What do we have for followers on like the Facebook one for the city? Is it a bunch? Yeah, we have 2.6,000. What does the lease department have? I'm just curious. 26.7,000.
Well, they do, you know, post things. What's the bus doing? I figured. That's awesome. Cool. He did. Don't you follow their page? Facebook. I I have to stay off there. You will arrest me if I'm on there. Okay. Yeah. That's why was US cannonballs broke fire
ambulance could be fired. Very cool. Could be emergency management. So, they had 30ome simulated patients. or actual patients fire practice for the bus. Cool. Practice overloading your very well for
a couple hours. So, I don't know if anybody else feels this way, but the the tulip tree marketing, I guess I misunderstood what they were doing. I thought that these were going to be ads that just popped up randomly on
people's pages, not things that were posted by us. Yeah. Or like like sponsored like are there those and these posts that they're doing? Yes. But I think there's only like like two paid ads. Got it. Cuz I haven't I haven't come
across any No, I think that's like total. Gotcha. Okay. So I I was not sure if that was also happening on the side, but I don't have my paper copy from last month because it was in there. Sure.
I just didn't. Yeah. Cool. Well, then you'd think that those ads that they're putting out would pop up randomly and those would maybe get us more followers. Um, okay. So, I think there's
no more real discussion on that budget review. EDA requires a vote to approve the budget. Yeah. So I sent an email. His question was through Cena. Assume everybody understood I get a reply why the went up
8%. Um either a approve or disapprove the budget for 2026. Questions I hopefully answer. It's not really something that we can just approve though because the contract
with CEDA is through the city. So we could not like we can send this budget to the city and say we don't. No. Yeah. And then they can do whatever they want at the city.
So what's the total increase over last year? Well, the total expenditure increase is 6.42%. Really? When you're looking at just expenses. That's really the only thing that is
changing other than this transfers in. I'm not sure that should go up. It's the same because you have to balance your budget. So, but I'm not sure where that 8 and a half% transfer in is coming from
increase. Well, the revenues match the expenditures, right? But the transfers and don't. So, the budget is is balanced. Yeah. But
what do you say the transfers in aren't adequate? I just I don't know where they're coming from. Oh, comes from the general fund. I think when I talked to Chris, that's what I thought she said. It's we just transfer
it into this account and then Okay. Well, I don't know that we need to be labor, but I'd make a motion to approve the budget. Second. All in favor? I oppose. Motion's passed. Update on couch
trucking. Couch struck me. Uh I spoke to Doug meeting today actually. Uh so I went out to the lots with Doug and Dennis. Yeah, Dennis. And we met with Craig Britain who is a civil engineer from Wit
Seth. Uh Craig's done a lot of work in Zambona and I assume he's crazy busy because he is horribly hard to get a hold of. Uh so what Doug thought is we'd go out there, we'd look at those two lots and then uh I think he thought that Craig would just draw up a civil
engineering plan, a site plan in two days. Well, no, that's not happening. So he can't get a hold of him. So they have not made an offer. They're waiting to get their civil engineering plan back, their site plan back, and then hope to make an offer at that point once they
see what it'll look like. Doug is upset. He's hoping that he can get a hold of Craig because he just can't get a hold of him at all and he might he may go somewhere else for civil engineering at the present moment if you drive out there which I'm assuming most of you do
not because it's not the most trafficked place in Zumbroa but there used to be trailers on 22nd Street. Um those have now been moved to the small lot that shares the same easement with water filtration. So they're off
the street and they called and Brian granted them access to do that kind of like a good faith like now from Krauss the trailers. Yeah, they're the Krausses because uh Midwest, not Midwest Livestock um fabrication is using to ship stuff up
and I didn't know this those trailers are full of metal which is going down to the new Tennessee Titans football stadium. That was interesting from Zimbrron. So it's fabricated ready to go. Yeah. And they're shipping all that stuff down there. Anyway, uh so yeah, it's still in
the process. They are interested in a TIFF. I'm not sure if Couch Trucking knows what a TIFF is. Uh but they've been told about a TIFF. So what I told him today, so what about can I apply for a TIFF? Well, we need to get, you know, a site plan. Look, we'll have our
engineers look at that site plan, then have an idea of what you're going to build, how much that's going to cost, and then we start, if that's a possibility, going through the TIFF process. But that's kind of where it's at right now. It's kind of almost like a waiting game to get back from Craig. And
isn't there some cost with setting up the TIFF? Yes. Which they normally pay, but we can only have so many. There are tiff districts. Yeah. And I And I'm not sure that that is in a tip district. It is. Yeah. So, because I I talked to Kim
about it, but yeah, it's it's kind of like a waiting game in this situation. We did a tip for Midwest Livestock, which is 10,000. Yeah. And you can see the Midwest livestock one. It's on there.
So, is it possible that CS could use WHKS? Is there a conflict of interest or something? I believe that might be a conflict of interest. Uh, they did ask about and actually WHKS recommended
this for them. It might be better because I think they're I think both of those firms are just crazy busy. Yeah. So yeah, I think it was an eye openener for the couch trucking guys um just getting this information back, you
know, it was cuz when we were out there, it was just interesting what they want to do. Yeah, exactly. Just sketch it out. We have an idea. So like one of the things like an example retention pond and so Midwest Livestock has a retention
retention pond on the north side of their it's like right where those two lots meet. And I went over and asked them and they said, "Yeah, you can expand it and use that if you want." Well, that means you'd have to build up the lot on the side where there are no
buildings to make the water drain that way into that retention pond. And it just doesn't seem feasible. It would be really expensive to get all the extra fill in and stuff. So, yeah, they'll be working with those guys. may need to know that. Yeah.
Expense before they make an offer on the way. So once once I hear anything from them as far as an an offer, I'll I'll send everybody an email so they're up to date on it. But that's the extent of what I have with Couch Trucking at this point.
All right. On to new business. Zamroa area business leaders trip to Northfield. Yeah. So you can see Bob was on as well. Uh so it's called Zabel Roa Area Business Leaders. You can see their brand I put in the memo here. Uh
investment group from the city. It's a variety of people from the city. Uh Brian's been in meetings of myself, Bob, and uh Mayor Hamill's been there as well. And what we did is we actually took a trip to Northfield to see what they have done. Um and they hosted
everybody. They had a meal afterwards. uh just kind of talking about what Zav is. Zabel is independent business p. So it's anybody who wants to donate money to this group. You can be a part of it and then they will go around and so one
of the things they want to do is Bergs Automotive out here. Uh Mark or is it Mark that runs that? Matt, excuse me. Matt runs out. He wants to get out of there because he needs space. uh the
city would like wouldn't like to see him get out of there, but would like to see him move because it's right by the trail head. It' be nice to use that area. So like they may hypothetically talk to Matt about what to do and then they would take money from themselves and
this rebound group and they would go in and invest it and um clean it up, put a new building in, they work with the city with with help. The great thing about this is it's not city money. It's independent money, you
know, privately used money that they don't have to wait for city government to pass certain things in such as tiffs or tax abatements or things like that. And those still could be possibilities depending on what it is they want to do. Uh yeah, Bob was on the trip and we got
to tour Northfield. Uh, one thing I thought was very interesting, they would usually buy a building like let's hypothetically say Zamroa drivetrain. Let's say they bought that building hypothetically and they wouldn't have a new industry come in where they would
divide it up into office spaces and many of the offices are still in use today. And that's kind of how and also it was small manufacturers or light industry. Yeah. One of the things they was really interesting is up on a hill we pulled into a place and it was a building with
about six units and it's man caves and it was like you know as a man myself I was like cool. How much they go for? 250 grand a piece. It was like holy crap. But they'll sell
them a little different. You know Northfield's got two colleges and growing community. And I do believe Zambroa is one of the smaller communities that they work with, but they are pretty fired up for Zimrod. So if you hear of Zavo or Zroa area
business leaders, Zable, however you want to say it, that's what it is. So it's a group. They don't have a I wouldn't say they have a leader yet by any means. No, they're they're uh the interesting thing is I think you had to leave early and then there was
discussion afterwards and and this logo came out of one of the members just um works down at the Zumbro Falls area. Yeah, he runs the camp ground campground down there and he's got a bunch of businesses. But anyway, they
came up with this logo, came up with a mission statement and all this. And this is all I've been going to a few of their meetings that three or four meetings that they've had and it's nothing formal yet, but now it's becoming formal. Now they're saying
now they're going to formalize their organization. I don't know, for example, if everybody will stay members of that that have been attending. There will be new members coming in, I'm sure. um and what kind of investment they're going to want from people to help build
up a fund to uh develop and promote Zimroda. Um they talked a little bit about a commercial club type or chamber of commerce type approach, but I don't think that's their goal. They shouldn't do that. That's really not what I recommended that they
do. They're more of a development company, investment company. And uh Rebound uh Brett Ree started years and years ago. He's a native from Northfield and they've worked many many many buildings over there.
Yeah. I Fairfield U motel is one they worked on. It's a beautiful place. um and with the hotel study and this group is interested in helping bring a motel or hotel to Somroa. So they're
starting to think about where that could be and so forth. See what hotel company would be interested and then pursue that. So it's there's a lot of activity, a lot of energy. I think it's a great thing for Sombrro. I didn't know how the
EDA would tie into that. That was exactly going to be my question. Just wait. I ask it. I'm thinking it would come. We could be involved in it, but I don't see that happening. Like, how do we collaborate or partner with them? We would collaborate. Yeah. If they need something, we would try to help just like any other developer.
Well, I would and I would hope that we're both, you know, both of our priorities are this like aligned. Oh, I think I think you'd like what you hear if you were at one of the meetings. But the thing is, and I agree with this, some of the members are saying, you know, we're starting to get into some
confidential stuff because they're talking to other businesses. So, they're developing rules now and how they're going to proceed and they'll develop a structure and probably develop leadership and then go from there. So just be
looking for information eventually if if you or anybody in Somro wants to get involved from an investment point of view, it would be a good thing to do. But and there's a lot of good thoughts and processes or projects in mind that
they're considering. But I I think for us as EDA, you know, I was I was thinking we could be kind of more intimately involved there, but it's not going to work because it's going to require, I think, um, confidentiality and it's going to
require maybe an investment even. I don't know. Sure. Well, they don't have a structure set up as far as like how you're choosing which projects. next meeting I think they'll get the structure set up for their organization. That's the way it sounds.
And then the number one project that I see right now is the hotel motel, right? Whatever you want. Is it a hotel that's decided on from this that group leadership group? Yeah. Elect officials there, I would assume.
Yep. and Rebound is on board and they're going to do a lot of research and start talking to some of the people they've worked with for other developments in many other cities. So, I see them being more involved as far as planning and zoning, making sure
that they're following rules and regulations that are already and they may come to us for as as Kurt said, they may come to us for some help with something. I don't know, you know, we'll see. The process if I remember correctly is
number one um or designate a project which I think Bob says they think they've done and then if it's a hotel then it's um branding will kind of who would be the most likely
candidate to come in and put a hotel here and then once they get that then they try to determine a site or maybe that comes But then the site is like second or third on the list and then they um work
on a presentation to bring out to investors to raise capital and then at that point then then they start raising capital would be potentially when they would come and ask for some help. Um and then obviously planning and zoning after
that. So so they're ways away. Yeah, they're ways away, but it'll happen fast because they work pretty fast. But I think um I think the beauty of it is it just developed organically. I think Todd
Fitz is really the kind of the catalyst there. And he just set a goal for himself to in 2025 to do what he could to help bring more vitality and improvements to
Zimrod. and he started talking to people. He's pretty well connected. Uh this last meeting there was a guy there that's been very deeply involved in restaurants. So that's interesting. Um so we'll just see where it all goes.
Got new people in town too with Mona and you know so there's there's new people coming to town. So it's weird. We have a car salesman who used to run vineyards and restaurants all over LA, Texas, too. Yeah. Yeah.
Some big time ventures. So, yeah, it'll be interesting to see what happens. But I It's exciting and all we can do is root them on, I guess, and support them if we can. But they're mostly a group of investors. I think that's what it will be.
To better our community. I I I don't see how they can do it any other way. I think there might be a minimum investment probably to qualify to be part of the group. I would guess. I don't know. Opposite of Rebound. So like Rebound had something like that too, right? Where you needed to rebound would invest their
own money, but these investors would invest from the community. It'd be a community it'd be a communitydriven venture basically with rebound supporting. So it's it's this some road air business leaders but rebound is contributing
rebound this isn't rebound they would they would collaborate and then if there's a project that rebound would be involved in they would yeah they would invest in that invest in that help manage the project you know they're good at it
so it's a good thing it's nothing that you know nothing you need to fear it's just a good I think I don't think I'm not scared. It's just evolved to this point now that I think next meeting I think the real organization of it will come together.
There's a small group meeting to talk about how to do that and and keep things confidential while still moving forward. Okay. If there's no more discussion, we will move on to Smith Grant. Yes. So, the Smith grant opened up at a time
where it was difficult to get things to collaborate with such as the EDA because this grant is a $10,000 grant, but the you need a 25% match from the city or from whatever it is you're doing. So, what I did is I worked with
Jeff, Jeff's last name is Jeff Meyers, who's our interim public works director, and we talked about the disc golf course to finish the disc golf course. The park board needed a little guidance with that. So, the Smith grant was written by
myself, and what it would do is it would add tea boxes for baling. Uh we would add stickers to the present baskets. There'd be arrows added to it and a sign. The sign would be from local
company. The obviously concrete would come local. And so I wrote this grant and we'll find out in October, September, October if we get this grant to finish the Frisbee golf course. It's just just those finishing touches.
Yeah, just those finishing touches. There's 18. There's 18 baskets out there. So, so what it would be would coincide with a new pool out here and the new campground. Uh it would be very beneficial for recreation amongst people in Zumbroa.
So, we'll see if it goes through. Um it seems to be used quite a bit, doesn't it? Yeah, there's quite a few guys. And if you ever go out there and look at it, it's hard to know because this the sign for the course is only nine holes, nine baskets. I'm sure there's online versions of it you can
see, but to know where you are and where the next hole is. So, this would take care of that. And it's I got to learn about a lot about Frisbee golf, which I did not know before. Interesting. You can't dunk. Yeah, that's right. You can dunk.
Okay. And then last is reports update on KB apartments. Yeah. So we're moving along with uh from what I've heard from Keller Bartman. So uh Miles Rob uh who does planning and zoning for us share they got a revised site plan from Keller Bartman on Monday.
Uh city engineers will be reviewing and providing comments. The revised plan from what I heard is much better than the original plan. That's the extent of my knowledge of that. Little progress has been made with development agreement. what they're waiting for numbers from the engineers for zoning and architectural plans. Uh development
agreement will not be confirmed until site plans are approved and finalized which will all go through the city council. One interesting piece of information is that the alley behind uh your store Bob will be one way uh
going from north to south this way. So it'll be a one-way alley, right? enter on this side. You can go that way. Yeah. So, you can exit by So, opposite of what it is. So, actually they're that's kind of bad because they're going uphill to get out
of there. Yeah, it is. But I know the county doesn't want people coming out on the road all the time, right? And that is county. That That's what Are there signs that say Are alleys typically I only ask
alleys can be one way? I've seen it many. Can't it just be grandfathered in though? The way the drive-thru was. They're going to drive however they want. Like this caribou coffee drivethru. You can sit there and patrol that one.
My road driving like trying to sneak out of their the truck in places where it hits the gravel. That was tough, man. Is the county set on that direction just because of that hill? I mean extension cord. That's the only disadvantage I see is going up that hill
in the winter. And that hill will be it'll be redone. But yeah, that's true. Because it'll have to be traffic coming out. Yeah. A good snow removal company. Good sanding company. Wink wink.
Yeah. But that was the city. We do have good I would just mention you know in the church just to bring you up to date we've developed the first congregational preservation society is what it's now
called. So all the assets have been transferred from the church to the preservation society and then that's just to help maintain the building. Now we'll start uh hopefully developing an organization that will look for uses for
the church. So if you got any thoughts or ideas, let me know. Um, but we're moving along with that and you can drive both ways on that street. Anything else? Thank you, ma'am.
Thank you. Okay, so