Called To Order
President Carlsrud called the meeting to order at 3:30 PM.
Roll Call
Members present: President Carlsrud, Commissioner Magnuson, Commissioner Bishop, Commissioner Erickson, and Commissioner Gulmon.
Department Reports
Water Superintendent Hesch reported that usage for August peaked on the 18th at 1,381,000 gallons. The total pumpage from January 1st to current is 33,254,000 and the average daily pumpage so far for the year is 1,108,000. It’s usually around 700,000-800,000 but due to the weather it’s up.
Fire Chief Magnuson reported the pumper will be gone for about a month. The paint is starting to crack and it’s under warranty but it will take about a month to get it fixed. The rural board is allowing us to move their pumper up to that spot and hopefully in about 2 weeks the new pumper will be here. They will be marking the catalytic converters on some of our trucks this week. Preconstruction meeting for the addition is on Thursday, site work is slated to start on the 13th. Sunday is the 9/11 motorcycle ride with Gwen as our speaker. Extinguishers billed out was $2474.82 and we didn’t get $1000 billed out yet for this month.
Police Chief Hatcher reported that dispatch has moved. There was also another resignation in the department. The officer is moving to highway patrol.
Electrical Superintendent Senf reported 2 outages for the month. One was lightening and the other was failed cutout. Installing sirens for the fire department.
President Carlsrud moved to item 5 and 7.
Discuss EV Charging Station
Superintendent Senf stated there has been questions if we will have one. Superintendent Senf recommended waiting as he is pretty sure the three main dealerships in town will have to put them in on their own and maybe a couple of gas stations. If we were to do one it would have to be a fast charge and that would be around $80,000 without including the installation or wiring. Also Tesla installs their own charging stations approximately 200 miles apart due to them having a different type of plug. You could put one in for about $6,000 but it’s a minimum of 5 hours to charge so if you put that down town, who’s going to stick around for 5 hours to charge their car? Senf recommends holding off on installing the stations at this time.
Discuss Increase in Cost WAPA Substation Repairs
Superintendent Senf said WAPA asked for additional $80,000 for the sub. The electrical department can do some of the work if everyone’s okay with it. It would save about $100,000. Commission decided to let the electrical department try it and go from there.
Operations Superintendent Klemisch reported there is still an open position in the sanitation department. We received the cameras to go on the garbage trucks. Also a reminder of the 32 gallon can limit.
Street department received their new graders and are ready to put them to work. Also working on some curb stops and old maintenance issues.
Finance Director Richter stated we changed our agenda format.
City Administrator Crawford added that Bobby Koepplin had a request to get tree prices on trees for a grant the Beautification Committee had gotten. The request has been reviewed and there were a couple of changes so at this time it has been sent back to him with the requested changes.
Review monthly bills/reports
Finance Director Richter reported $2.3 million in expenditures for August. $283,000 in PFP because of purchasing the maintenance building and also the two vacant properties. The new equipment lease for $68,000, BND some PFP debt service due for another $64,000, invoice for the FD addition for $53,000, construction projects are around $750,000 and MRES is another $460,000.
Discuss Gravity Drain by the Elks
Chad Petersen from KLJ stated they plan to increase the capacity of the storm sewer system along Main Street. We have reached out to contractors for pricing and suppliers for availability of materials. We have found one contractor to do the work this fall. The issues are we are already in September and we don’t know what kind of fall we’ll have. We’re recommending waiting until this spring to complete the project. This project will be KLJ’s project and no dollars will come from the city.
Discuss Removing Cats from Lease Law Requirement
City Administrator Crawford stated there have been requests to remove cats.
Police Chief Hatcher stated he always thought it was silly to have a leash on a cat but he feels the “animal at large” would still apply if the cat was caught outside their house.
Review offer to sell City Lot Located North of West Main Street in NP Additions 5 and 6
City Administrator Crawford stated his offer is the same amount but there is an additional section to make the access work. The other thing requested is that he knows the closing will take a bit so he is requesting to do dirt work prior to closing. City Administrator Crawford recommended accepting the offer.
City Attorney Martineck stated we would have him sign some sort of agreement so if everything falls through and he already started the dirt work we would be protected.
Ordinance Review
President Carlsrud stated there are several ordinances that are no longer valid. We will want to start going through and cleaning them up.
Discuss Retirement
City Administrator Crawford stated there has been discussions about different options such as NDPERS. I would like to have Carl look into it to see what a better option is. Anyone who is currently employed can choose what plan they want.
Adjourn
The meeting was adjourned at 4:35 PM.