Village Board

MEETING MINUTES Village of Palmyra SPECIAL VILLAGE BOARD MEETING Thursday Sept. 4, 2025 Village Hall 100 W. Taft Street 6:00 P.M. The meeting was called to order by Village President Tim Gorsegner at 6 pm. Roll call: Ball, Deichl, Gorsegner, Petruska, Wallace, Tucker-present. Smith excused. Devin Flanigan with Keller. Also present: Chief P. Blount, Chief M. Gartzke, Assistant Chief Dan Schiller. New Business 1. Presentation from Keller Inc. regarding their services and our Public Safety Building. President Gorsegner asked if they could work with a metal building. He explained that the village has an opportunity to get a large building at a much-discounted rate. Keller has done a walkthrough of the building already. Petruska and Wallace want to make sure what we do is the right thing. Dan Schiller- asked if it is viable to remodel? Flanigan said they need to know what our needs are and will this building meet our needs for the future. Ball says this old building is too small, we as a board have come to the conclusion that we need a new building. Ball said that there are quotes for 2-3 million dollars to just remodel. Schiller-remodel quote-critical fixes, what do we want for long term. Lots of money and then when community grows, we need a bigger building. The current building is not big enough for all the vehicles and for staff to sleep there. Petruska says that she wants to look at EVERYTHING. Tucker says we are doing our due diligence but feels that remodeling the building will not meet our upcoming needs. Research is already showing that a remodel won’t work. Mr. Flanigan continued to reiterate how important it is that the Village know and express what their needs are, not just for today for long term. Tier 1: $5000, the Village would get a needs assessment. This will determine whether the old site will work or not. Tier 2: $10,000- they put together a floor plan, etc of how building will look. Tier 3: $10,000 to have community meeting showing what research we did and show them what our options are. The Village need to find out what they can afford first, have a talk that involves Ehlers. This could take possibly a couple of months or up to a year to figure out what we even want to do, says Flanigan. They don’t do grant searching or writing, we do that. Blount asked if they could give us a forecast on how long our new building should last us. Yes, said Flanigan, it should be 50 years for building and site should be planned to last 100 yrs. Are GIS studies included in any of these tiers, yes they do that. Tier one takes 2-3 months, but we have to stay on schedule. No action taken. 2. Discussion/possible action on the Fire/EMS Contract. This meeting started at 7:30 pm Town of Palmyra called their meeting to order. Attorney Stan Riffle was present for the Village and Attorney Jon McDonell for the Town. Tim started with the latest copy of the fire/EMS contract from the Village, said that the Town should have these copies. The only changes made were the dates for the call volume are now Sept. 1, 2024, to Aug. 31, 2025, so this Aug. calls can be part of the calculation. And the dry hydrant wording was put back in in case the DNR changes their minds. Discussion on section VIII, item C regarding repairs on the jointly owned vehicles. The Town is requesting that the Village go out for a 2nd quote for unforeseen costs of the vehicles. Trustee Wallace says she doesn’t want vehicles repairs to be delayed if they are going to squabble over getting quotes. Town attorney says to set a threshold of say $5000 before quotes are needed. Supervisor Martens wants the coverages on the vehicles before the agreement. The Village Clerk made copies of the vehicle list along with the amount of coverage to the Town Board members. Supervisor Gajewski has a problem with mutual aid being part of the call volume. He feels that the staffing costs are already part of the fire/EMS budget. Attorney Riffle said we all get mutual aid, town residents and village residents and that cost is a tradeoff that we will also help other communities when they need it. Riffle said that the chicken farm fire a few years ago is an example of this. There were 12 different depts that came to help them, so it benefits all of us. It helped the Town as well. We all benefit so we all share in that cost so the town can get mutual aid as well. Stan says it is not a huge number, Josh said it is $10,500. Mutual aid calls factored in is a 1% increase. The Town argued that other districts do not use mutual aid calls as part of their formula. Supervisor Martens wants the detailed budget for the fire/EMS/police departments and stated that the Town won’t make decision until they receive these. Attorney Riffle instructed the Clerk to turn over the budget to them first thing in the morning. But the Town really doesn’t get a say in what these budgets have in them. Martens said he is wondering why no one on the Village Board has mentioned that they might have to make cuts to these budgets. Trustee Wallace said that there has been 1 budget meeting to look at them so far. She does anticipate cuts to be made. Gorsegner/Petruska motion to approve the contract presented tonight for fire/EMS services to the Town of Palmyra with the noted changes to item VIII.C, jointly owned vehicles as discussed during the meeting and agreed upon by both parties. Roll call vote: Ball, Deichl, Gorsegner, Petruska, Wallace, Tucker-aye. Motion carried. Their attorney needs to review the contract, the budget and the vehicle insurance. Martens asked if they would be meeting again on Sept. 18th, Village President Gorsegner stated that the Village doesn’t need to meet, they have agreed on this contract as it is. No one entered closed session at any time during the meeting. The Town Board adjourned their meeting. Petruska/Ball motion to adjourn at 8:52 pm. All ayes-motion carried. Respectfully submitted, Laurie Mueller, Village Clerk/Treasurer Minutes approved without corrections on Sept. 15, 2025