City Council

City of Mantorville Regular City Council Minutes, 2023 February 12. 2024 1. Call to Order Mayor Bradford called the meeting to order at 6:30pm. Present: Mayor Chuck Bradford Councilmembers: Lyle Hoaglund Jeffrey Ingalls Henry Blair Absent: Jessica Bradford Others Present: City Clerk-Treasurer Gretchen Lohrbach Fire Chief Duke Harbaugh Public Works Lead Joe Adams Public Works Wade Schroeder City Engineer Scott Huneke-WHKS City Finance Consultant Mike Bubany-David Drown & Associates Sonya Bubany-David Drown and Associates 2. Pledge of Allegiance Everyone stood and recited the Pledge of Allegiance. 3. Changes to the Agenda City Clerk Gretchen Lohrbach asked to add Jessica Bradford’s resignation under New Business. Council Approved to add this first to new business. 4. Consent Agenda Motion was made by Councilmember Hoaglund and seconded by Councilmember Ingalls to approve the Consent Agenda, as presented: A. Regular City Council Meeting Minutes of February 1.22.24 B. County Commissioners Regular Meeting Minutes 1.9.24 Motion carried: 4 ayes / 0 nays  5. Proclamations, Presentations and Recognitions-No Items 6. Public Concerns-No Items 7. Public Safety Update A. Looking back on the Fire Department, there were 13 medicals & 2 fires for the month of December and 8 medicals & 4 fires for the month of January. Fire Department is Currently looking into a grant through the state for an Extractor (washer & dryer) Once Standard Operating Guidelines (SOGs) are done, Chief Harbaugh will bring them to the City for final approval. New applicant for the Fire Department has certifications that are current and up to date. Woking with Kasson Fire Dept. for an immersion day with the kindergarteners to learn what it means to be a firefighter. 8. Public Hearings – No Items 9. Old Business/New Business A. New Business 1. Councilmember Blair moved and Councilmember Hoaglund seconded to accept Jessica Bradford’s resignation letter from City Council and declare a vacancy: Motion Carried: 4 ayes / 0 nays Council decided to post the vacancy on Facebook, our website, and on the water bills again to fill the seat at the first meeting on March 11 th. Applications will need to be turned in before the meeting. 2. Scott Huneke asked for a motion to enter into the construction agreement with Xcel Energy. Councilmember Ingalls motioned and Councilmember Blair seconded to approve the Construction Agreement and the Decoration Agreement at the same time contingent on Xcel allowing the decoration agreement to go through: Motion Carried: 4 ayes/ 0 nays Pricing on the Construction Agreement is good for 60 days. Mayor Bradford and Scott Huneke will speak with Xcel so that they agree and the Mayor can sign. Huneke will speak later about the lead-copper inventory. Mantorville City Council Minutes of February 12. 2024. Page 2 of 7  3. Mike Bubany let AJ Gengler with the Dodge Center Ambulance and Dodge Center City Administrator Lee Mattson go first on the agenda before the bonding issue for HWY 57 about what the future may hold for them. Reimbursement is minimal (about 30%) with most ambulances. They are currently operating with one less employee than usual. They receive some funding from the City of Dodge Center and their other revenue comes from donations and billing. They currently respond to around 1200 calls a year, so they have had to increase their volunteers to be able to staff. They currently have around 35 EMTs and Paramedics. They also have 6-7 EMRs. Staffing is an issue nationwide with EMS. Mike Bubany, with David Drown and Associates, worked on putting together a cash flow page and a list of capital items and asset life, but every way he tried to get it to work, they eventually will just run out of funds. Some towns didn’t want to have a levy for the ambulance be part of their City levy, so special taxing districts could be used to levy those funds. Some townships also wanted to have contracts. Bubany said they came up with a hybrid model that includes just the Cities of Claremont, Mantorville, Kasson, and Dodge Center where a special taxing district would be created and a board would be formed with individuals from these communities. This district would then contract with a joint powers that would be made up of all the townships involved. The district would decide how much it needs to tax overall and levy, and this would then be divided up on a per household basis. The townships would have to create their own levy and then pay the special taxing district. The model works in concept, and they are hoping something like this could be implemented this summer. They are also hoping for some state funding in the future. The tax base for Mantorville would be around $50.00 a month, it would be less for township. Councilmember Ingalls said this is not fair because it takes more time and effort to get out to the rural areas, that there should be another way. Mike Bubany said it is spread out over their farmland. Councilmember Blair said that it is our responsibility to deal with this as far as the City. The townships will do what works for them. The City could bill the same way that utilities are billed. Mayor Bradford said that as far as the hybrid, that sounds right. The board would have discussions and decide the amounts of ambulances, etc. Councilmember Ingalls said he would like to do more research about this issue because Mantorville doesn’t have the commercial offset as other communities. All the Councilmembers thanked them for taking the time to come and talk to them. Mantorville City Council Minutes of February 12. 2024. Page 3 of 7  4. Mike Bubany with David Drown and Associates spoke about the bonding for Highway 57. He feels a public sale of the bond is the best option at this time for the funding that is necessary because the interest rate will be lower. There will be some non-utility costs, but the sewer and water revenues will be able to fund the bond. Luckily the bond would be $900,000.00 which is better than the million dollars that was originally planned. The bond would also reimburse the City for the engineering costs that have already been paid. The City’s credit rating is high so a public sale option would work well. The call option would be in 2033 if we want to pay it off early. Council doesn’t have to commit to anything tonight other than understanding what is involved. MNDOT will accept this bonding option. There is a resolution necessary to authorize the public sale. Council did choose to vote on Resolution 2024-04 to authorize the bonding to pay for the HWY 57 project. Councilmember Ingalls moved and Councilmember Hoaglund seconded: Motion carried: 4 ayes / 0 nays Council took a 2 minute break for City Clerk Lohrbach and Mayor Bradford to sign. 10. Tabled Items A. Master Fee schedule Councilmember Ingalls moved and Councilmember Blair seconded to pull this item from the table: Motion carried: 4 ayes / 0 nays Mayor Bradford said Bubany can help with this. Councilmember Ingalls asked about building inspection costs. Bubany said that it was based on value of the permit before when they employed CMS when he was an administrator. City Clerk Lohrbach reached out to Tom Weiner about fee schedule for permits. Bubany said there is also a list-serve with League of Minnesota Cities that she could reach out to. She would like to leave it on the table until she learns more. Councilmember Blair moved and Councilmember Ingalls seconded to put this item back on the table: Motion carried: 4 ayes / 0 nays B. HWY 57 Pamphlets-Left on table C. Annual Review of Council Bylaws, Policies, and Procedures-Left on table Mantorville City Council Minutes of February 12. 2024. Page 4 of 7  11. Reports A. Public Works Report 1) They have been taking out the trees infected with Emerald Ash Borer down at Riverside Park and burning the brush, but we will need a contractor to come in and finish the last few. 2) The construction crew will be looking for a staging area with the HWY 57 Project. We don’t have a lot of room and Adams doesn’t want to sacrifice the Riverside Park parking lot, but it looks like that is where it will all have to go. The Farmer’s Market on Tuesday night can be relocated to the Riverside Park Shelter. 3) Wants to remind everyone not to be flushing things down the toilet that don’t belong there because it’s causing clogs. This can be put on the website and water bills. 4) Deputy City Clerk Arnold is working on updating and rewriting the sign at the Stussy Campground. B. City Clerk Report 1) City Clerk Lohrbach and Deputy City Clerk Stephanie Arnold are finishing up all the beginning of the year reports. C. Consultant Report Scott Huneke gave updates on the bids for the HWY 57 Project. The low bidder was Elcor Construction. The contract will be awarded in Mid-March and there will be a pre-construction meeting that the contractor will attend in late March and they will set a community meeting for early April. Elcor would like to start construction as early as the spring load limits are put on and they typically go until the beginning of May. They may be sooner this year. MNDOT does not advise setting a date for the community meeting right now. As far as businesses go in town, MNDOT is the point person for this meeting. Councilmember Ingalls asked if MNDOT would be willing to do it earlier. Huneke said that MNDOT cited the road construction on Broadway in Rochester, with 45 businesses, and said that they were all understanding of that urgency. Councilmember Hoaglund mentioned that many things are ironed out at the pre- construction meeting and it’s best to wait until after it. Huneke agreed because that is when all the detour plans will be presented. MNDOT will organize it. Mayor Bradford mentioned that the state are the ones awarding the contract. Not us. Councilmember Ingalls mentioned that it is 100% of the businesses here that will be impacted, only about 10% of the ones in Rochester with the project there. Huneke said the contactor is required to be at the pre-construction meeting and the community meeting afterwards, but isn’t required to be at an earlier meeting. Mayor Mantorville City Council Minutes of February 12. 2024. Page 5 of 7  Bradford said that maybe they could be there to hear citizen’s concerns as far as signage and other input; then the contractor could tell us at the pre-construction meeting what they can and can’t do. Councilmember Ingalls said that we told the businesses we’d give them as much of a heads-up as we could. He said we could let citizens know that the contractors wouldn’t be there to answer questions, just to hear the business’s concerns; but businesses could also send questions for City Clerk Lohrbach to forward on to the contractor. Mayor Bradford said that he can call a special meeting before the pre-construction meeting at the MNDOT facility and the businesses can come and give their input. Councilmember Ingalls also said that maybe a Mantorville Chamber meeting could be a good forum. Mayor Bradford said we could have the Chamber meeting at City Hall and post a quorum. Huneke will reach out to Elcor and check on scheduling. Huneke also said Minnesota Department of Health gave WHKS a grant for lead-copper service line inventory. He doesn’t need a motion, just agreement for WHKS to send a proposal into MDH that they will be assisting the City in this project. D. Committee Reports 1) Chamber – Met in February and Mayor Bradford said a special meeting can be set up for Chamber at City Hall for the contractors to come and receive input from business owners about HWY 57. 2) Economic Development Authority-CEDA has a new employee in attendance, also discussion of the revolving loan fund, chamber was present to talk about marketing for HWY 57 and a single point of information kept current, grant money can also be used for direct mailings to inform customers of the HWY 57 project and that all businesses in Mantorville are still open, potential brewery update, flood feasibility study for the bandshell at Riverside Park-grant was awarded to the City-City Clerk Lohrbach reached out to Laura Qualey with CEDA for guidance on how to handle the funds, a faith based leader in the community is interested in starting little housing units to help people transitioning out of stressful situations-City Clerk Lohrbach said he will be at the next meeting 3) Finance/Budget 4) Fire Department 5) Infrastructure 6) Kasson Mantorville Joint Powers-meets this week 7) Mantorville Restoration Association 8) Park Board – Meets in March 9) Personnel 10) Fire Relief 11) Township E. Councilmember Reports Councilmember Hoaglund says that a Dodge County Community Foundation (DCCF) has been formed with Tom Monson and members from each of the six communities in the County. They will meet once a month at the courthouse and are trying to put Mantorville City Council Minutes of February 12. 2024. Page 6 of 7  together funds to operate as an organization. They will talk about issues and how to help each community in the organization. F. Mayor’s Report 12. Adjourn Motion to adjourn made by Councilmember Ingalls and seconded by Councilmember Hoaglund: Motion carried: 4 ayes / 0 nays. Meeting adjourned at 10:00pm. Mantorville City Council Minutes of February 12. 2024. Page 7 of 7