Committee of the Whole meeting

Meeting Minutes Committee of the Whole December 15, 2025 6:00 pm Village Hall 100 W. Taft St. Palmyra, WI. The meeting was called to order by Gorsegner at 6:00 p.m. Roll call: Ball, Wallace, Petruska, Smith, Deichl, Gorsegner-present. Tucker-absent Also present: Public Safety Director Paul Blount, Fire Chief Mike Gartzke, Assistant Fire Chief Dan Schiller, Scott Halbrucker. Pledge of Allegiance Communications: None. Department Reports: Building Inspection – None. Clerk / Treasurer – Tax bills and Water Increase letters have been sent out. Library -Petruska said they had meeting tonight. Parks & Recreation – None. Public Safety - Chief Blount said they were dealing with a theft today of a trailer along with couple of deaths in the Village. Fire/EMS had multiple calls. PD was at the Middle/High School for 5 1/2 hours with an investigation. We have had 790 Police calls so far this year and Fire/EMS has had 290 calls. Public Works - Halbrucker was dealing with the water leak on Taft and 4th Street. It took 2 days of digging because the as-builts of 2001 weren’t correct. 70,000 to 75,000 gallons a day loss. He estimates that in a month and ½ we lost over 4.5 million gallons of water. Letters went out for service line inventory. Complaints on sidewalk. 25 to 30% of sidewalks are ice covered but he doesn’t have manpower or time to salt all the sidewalks. We’ll try to get the bad ones. They are working on Sewer plant maintenance. Committee Reports: Smith said Park and Rec met the other night. They will post the Recreation Director position immediately and the school is looking at taking it over and will take it to their Board and we’ll look at the job description and talk to Eagle about combining the position. New Business: 1. Entire Committee of the Whole A. PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that the Village Board of the Village of Palmyra may convene into closed session pursuant to State Statute 19.85(1)(c) Considering employment, promotion, compensation or performance evaluation data of any public employee over which the governmental body has jurisdiction or exercises responsibility. Specifically, the Public Safety Departments organizational structure and employee contracts. AND B. PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that the Village Board of the Village of Palmyra may convene into closed session pursuant to State Statute 19.85(1)(e) Deliberating or negotiating the purchasing of public properties, the investing of public funds, or conducting other specified public business, whenever competitive or bargaining reasons require a closed session. Specifically, the Fire/EMS contract with the Town of Palmyra.  Motion was made by Wallace/Ball to go into closed session at 6:10 p.m. Roll call vote: Ball, Deichl, Gorsegner, Petruska, Smith, Wallace. All ayes. C. You are further notified that at the end of the Closed Session, the Board may convene in open session pursuant to §19.85(2), Stats., for possible additional discussion and action concerning any matter discussed. Motion at 7:23 p.m. to go into open session by Petruska/Ball. Roll call vote: Ball, Deichl, Gorsegner, Petruska, Smith and Wallace-present. D. Discussion/possible action on a professional service agreement between the Village and MSA Professional Services for the 2026 Safe Drinking Water administration. Josh Meyerhoffer from MSA said that the funding was released in 2025 and was ranked 7th in the state with 50% funding up to 3.5 million. Halbrucker said we’ll take money as we need it. 20% over 7 million. 6.5 million estimated for this project. Motion by Wallace/Ball to approve the MSA Project 00384076 in the amount of $35,000. Roll call vote: Ball, Deichel, Gorsegner, Petruska, Smith, Wallace -aye. Motion carried. E. Discussion/possible action a professional service agreement between the Village and MSA Professional Services for the PFAS project. Construction bidding for PFAS Facilities. Meyerhofer, MSA said it would treat Well 1 & 3. It will be bid out in January and would take 18 months construction time and would cost $392,000 for bidding and construction project. Motion by Wallace to approve the MSA Project in the amount of $392,000 PFAS bidding construction project, second by Deichl second. Roll call vote: Ball, Deichl, Gorsegner, Petruska, Smitha, Wallace-aye. Motion carried. F. Discussion/possible action on the minutes from Dec. 1, 2025, Village Board meeting and Dec. 8, 2025 Recreation Committee meeting. Motion by Smith/Wallace to approve the minutes with a correction to the Rec. Committee Meeting to change the city Lucht to Luck. All ayes-motion carried. G. Discussion/possible action on the appointment of the 2026 Election officials. Motion by Petruska/Smith to approve as presented. All ayes-motion carried. H. Discussion/possible action on granting temporary limited easements and also permanent easements to the WI Dept. of Transportation on parcels 171-0516-2214-021 and 2214-002, Halbrucker said it was a beach lot and a lot where the dam is. Motion by Petruska/Smith to approve. All ayes-motion carried. 2. Public Safety Committee: Chairperson Ball A. Discussion/possible action on creating a fee schedule to provide Fire/EMS coverage to KMFD. Chief Gartzke said KMFD approached him regarding their severe manpower shortage. They would let us know within 24 hours if they were short and we would staff accordingly. We said we would do that up to December 31 at midnight and after that they would have to pay us for the coverage. After January 1, we would charge them. Right now we get paid by the people for the EMS calls. We would charge $1500 a day for 2 personnel and our ambulance and $800 for a ½ day. How we came up with that (Gartzke) is we took our highest paid and lowest paid EMS rates and came up with a middle amount plus administration, wear and tear on vehicle. Chief Blount said we would run this by legal. Blount said we could possibly use their equipment. Maybe two-tier fee with our equipment or there’s. Also, cancellation fee possibly 72 hours or 24-hour notice if  you need to fill positions. Motion by Petruska/Smith to approve the $1,500 per day, $800 half day once it is run by legal for approval. All ayes-motion carried. B. Discussion/possible action on a fee for EMT-A service calls. Ball said we have a new category for EMS. Gartzke said we switched our service level to a flex EMS. We have a number of people that are advanced level certified. They can act at a higher level. Utilize state and doctor approval. We have to cover the medication/supplies, drugs and we want to be able to charge for that. Basic life support call is $1,700 and we would like to add 1,000 for advance level call. Motion by Petrushka/Ball to approve the $1,000 additional fee. All ayes-motion carried. 3. Administration & Planning: Chairperson Deichl A. Discussion/possible action on the special events/parade form update-insurance. Deichl surveyed a bunch of organizations that hold special events on our property. The Lions club said that general liability is covered by Lions, but it would be an additional $800 more per event if they were selling alcohol. Lori Garlock said it would cost $700/800. PE High School has a 3 million policy they would use. Wendy Fritz from Makers Market said it would cost $49 per vendor/event. Music on Main has no liability insurance. Don Rutkowski has a 2 million policy so it would be $250/year with alcohol. Deihl said if it is a criminal act, there is no liability. Deichl called Fort Atkinson and they have a guideline saying they should have 1-2 million. Petruska and Smith don’t want to discourage events. Smith/Deichl made a motion to modify the special event form from required to recommend additional insured. All ayes-motion carried. B. Discussion/possible action on an application to bow hunt the village parcel 171- 0516-2724-001 from Jonathan & Sandra Gibbons. Motion by Smith/Wallace to approve. All aye-motion carried. C. Discussion/possible action on an application for an operator’s license from Elisabeth Looper. Motion Smith/Deichl to approve. All ayes-motion carried. 4. Budget & Finance Committee: Chairperson Wallace A. Discussion/possible action on payment of Bills totaling $80,211.68 plus additional bills from WE, Insight FS, Johnson Block, AFLAC, Menards, 120Water, Fehr Graham, WI Dept. of Transportation, Purchase Power, Stryker Sales (2). Motion by Petruska/Smith to pay the bills with the extras. Roll call vote: Ball, Deichl, Gorsegner, Petruska, Smith, Wallace-aye. Motion carried. B. Discussion/possible action on Resolution 2025-14 amending the 2025 fire, EMS, and police budgets. Motion by Wallace/Ball to approve the budget amendment but to only carry over to Fire/EMS not to PD. Roll call vote: Ball, Deichl, Gorsegner, Petruska, Smith, Wallace – aye. Motion carried. 5. Personnel Committee: Chairperson Tucker A. Discussion/possible action on the 2026 Wage Scale for Village employees. Wallace motion to approve all the wages except for the fire chief ($60,000), assistant and deputy chief ($20.63) as we will be reviewing at a later date, second by Petruska. Roll call vote: Ball, Deichl, Gorsegner, Petruska, Smith, Wallace-aye. Motion carried. Motion by Petruska/Smith to adjourn at 8:30. All ayes-motion carried. Respectfully submitted, Dee Dee Morateck, Deputy Clerk/Treasurer Minutes approved Jan. 5, 2026 with corrections