Village Board meeting

MEETING MINUTES Village of Palmyra REGULAR VILLAGE BOARD MEETING Monday December 1, 2025 Village Hall 100 W. Taft Street 6:00 P.M. The meeting was called to order by President Gorsegner at 6:00 pm. Roll call: Ball, Deichl, Gorsegner, Petruska, Smith, Tucker, Wallace-present. Pledge of Allegiance Communications: Dec. 4th 6 pm at the Community Center representatives from the UW Extension will talk with local businesses about the Rural Entrepreneurial Venture, Dec. 6th at 5 pm is the Lions Club Christmas parade and the tree lighting to follow at the museum. Dec. 7th there will be a concert at United Methodist church. Friends of library bingo for books at 6 pm. Dec. 3rd. A reminder to residents to please remove snow from hydrants. Monthly Reports: Public Works- Halbrucker has gotten a lot of complaints about grass getting torn up during the recent plowing. The ground isn’t frozen, and a lot of these areas are actually the road right of way, not the resident’s property. DPW will pick up sod in the spring. If there is any sod in their driveways DPW will get it out of the driveway. The Hwy 59 sidewalk by the lake will be plowed tomorrow if they can. Somewhere in the Village is a water leak- we are losing between 30 & 50,000 gals a day. About 500 service line letters will go out to residents. If the lines are galvanized or unknown you will get a letter. Public works has until 2037 to replace any galvanized laterals. The Christmas tree at the museum will be up and decorated this week. Public Safety- Director Blount said his dept. has been quite busy. Police-steady traffic stops, with one being a 55 mph in a 25 mph last week. There has been an increase in mental health calls recently, these calls usually tie them up for 3-6 hrs. Fire Chief Gartzke reported that they have had 279 total calls for service so far this year compared to last year of 256. Just completed ladder testing. We did our own hose testing this year. We had a few failures. Issues with water heater which were repaired and also a garage furnace might need to be repaired. They will be training on ice/water rescue. 5 Bugels will be here tomorrow for mechanical and electrical review of the public safety building. Recreation Dept.,- typed report submitted Library- typed report submitted Clerk/Treasurer- tax bills will be going out this week once the budget is adopted. Public service commission public hearing will be Jan. 6th for the water rate increase. Public Forum: Judy Stapleton 511 N. 2nd St- has the Village reached an agreement regarding fire/ems services with the town yet? President Gorsegner says it is on the agenda tonight. Don Rutkowski-212 Mill Rd.- He is the acting commander of the American Legion Post 304 and wants to speak regarding the special events million-dollar insurance policy requirement. They are a nonprofit veteran’s organization. They put on the Memorial Day parade to honor fallen veterans and a 4th of July celebration. They will most likely not be able to put these events on if the cost of this requirement for insurance is too high, they don’t have that kind of money. He spoke to a member of the Lions Club and the 2 events they hold would require $800 per event as alcohol is served at them. A small handful of volunteers put these events on. This would hurt the village as a whole to have to stop having these events. Even though both organizations barely break even at their events they still contribute $1,000 to local food pantries and scholarships at the High School. There has been no history of any issues. Rutkowski says he hopes they consider the impact on this community this would have.  Public Hearing: Public Hearing to consider Resolution 2025-13, 2026 Budget Adoption and Tax Levy will be opened for discussion. No public comment. No comments from the Public. Hearing is closed at 6:18. 1. Consent Agenda: All items listed are considered routine and will be enacted by one motion. There will be no separate discussion of these items unless a Board member so requests, in which event the item will be removed from the Consent agenda and be considered on the regular agenda. A. Wallace/Smith motion to approve the following minutes: November 17th, 2025 Committee of the Whole meeting and Special Village Board meeting, and November 20th, 2025 special village board meeting as presented. All ayes-motion carried. 2. Building Permits none 3. Committee/Commission reports: None 4. New Business Discussion and Possible Action on the Following Items A. Petruska/Wallace motion to approve Resolution 2025-12 establishing a special charge for recycling services be placed on the tax roll for 2025 tax bills. The fee per residential unit is $67.08. Trustee Petruska stated that the reason the Village moved the recycling fees onto the tax bills was to fee up expenditures to make the referendum amount smaller. Roll call vote: Ball, Deichl, Gorsegner, Petruska, Smith, Tucker, Wallace B. Renewal of the Village insurance plans for 2026. Agent Paul Lessila from R & R Insurance presented. He reviewed the coverage options for Village vehicles that are 10 yrs. old or older. We can go to something called Actual stated values for more coverage because they no longer will have full replacement coverage. The Clerk, Public Safety Director and Fire Chief will look at the auto list to see if this is an option we want to move to. Lessila stated that our auto is down about $1900 due to an older fire truck. Property insurance is up only 4.6%, 1% is a rate, the rest is inflation. Workers’ compensation rates are set by the state. This has increased due to an increase of our payroll mainly in the fire/EMS dept. That increase is $3500. The overall increase for all policies is up $5939. The Ready Rebound program was discussed briefly. Then there was discussion on the Special events liability piece the village recently put on our application. Lessila said that any outside organization of the Village is not covered under the Village’s policy. In the event of an injury whoever is found negligent will be the one getting sued. These organizations would want general liability coverage if someone was hurt at one of their events. Don Rutkowski asks if they need the million-dollar liability policy, does it have to be that high. Tucker/Smith motion to approve the renewal of the Village insurance policies with the League for a total premium $95,841.00. Roll call vote: Ball, Deichl, Gorsegner, Petruska, Smith, Tucker, Wallace-aye. Motion carried. C. Special events permit details for clarification. President Gorsegner asked what the main reason for the liability coverage and Trustee Wallace was said she was looking at other community’s forms all of them had a policy of some sort of insurance coverage. Wallace said this is to protect the Village. Clerk Mueller suggested that a board member contact all of the organizations and ask them to find out what it will cost them for this and bring back to the Board. Trustee Petruska says that the organizations were to be contacted prior to the board making the decision, she thought this had already happened. Mueller asked the board “Do we also do it for park rentals?” Mueller will send to Trustee Deichl a list of the organizations so he can contact them. Paul says to start at 1 million then where does the board feel comfortable, name the Village as an additional insured. He said the board needs to decide what is the right level of coverage you feel comfortable with. Safety and loss control. Farmers market is their personal insurance, get a form from Paul to give to them. No action was  taken; this will come back on the COW agenda of Dec. 15th if Trustee Deichl has all of the information he needed to get. D. Wallace/Deichl motion to adopt Resolution 2025-13 for the 2026 Budget Adoption and Tax Levy as presented. Roll call vote: Ball, Deichl, Gorsegner, Petruska, Smith, Tucker, Wallace-aye. Motion carried. E. Tucker/Smith motion to approve the 2026 TID #3 and TID #4 budgets as presented. Roll call vote: Ball, Deichl, Gorsegner, Petruska, Smith, Tucker, Wallace-aye. Motion carried. F. 2026 Utility Budgets – Superintendent Halbrucker reviewed some of the utility budgets. He said that he lowered the revenue due to Standard Process having better levels on their discharges, so we won’t be collecting as much in surcharges from them. He will be using $42,000 from LGIP for main replacement. On the sewer expenses- maintenance of collection system; the sewers are getting lined. Sludge hauling went way down after coming up with a different solution. We can go 6-7 yrs without hauling sludge. Replacement of some manhole covers will be done. He wants to finish the Garfield street ditch (s/w) so they can mow it. The 38% increase of the water rates was figured into the water revenues. He is guessing on loans, which is dependent on how fast the PFAS construction goes. Water expenses- maintenance of laterals is up to replace 1st street laterals. Tucker/Ball motion to approve the 2026 Utility Budgets as presented. Roll call vote: Ball, Deichl, Gorsegner, Petruska, Smith, Tucker, Wallace-aye. Motion carried. G. Wallace/Smith motion to approve the payment of the bills totaling $251,377.72 with extras presented tonight to Jefferson Fire & Safety for a thermal imaging camera using grant funds, Jefferson County Central Duplicating office, Premium Waters, Galls, Wex Bank, Riehle tree farm, and Hydro Corp. Roll call vote: Ball, Deichl, Gorsegner, Petruska, Smith, Tucker, Wallace-aye. Motion carried. H. Tucker/Wallace motion to approve the October Financial statement, bank statement, and cash account statement as read by the Village Clerk/Treasurer. All ayes-motion carried. I. Tucker/Wallace motion to approve the renewal of a mobile home park license for GVH Palmyra Development LLC dba Beachwood Village. All ayes- motion carried. J. Tucker/Wallace motion to approve an Operator’s license application for Riley Valdez. All ayes- motion carried. K. Tucker/Ball motion to approve an Operator’s license application for Roxanne Kircher. All ayes- motion carried. L. Ball/Wallace motion to approve a conditional use permit for Verizon Wireless to replace outdated antennae with updated smaller antennae on the Village’s water tower as recommended by the Plan Commission. All ayes-motion carried. M. Employee evaluation forms. Trustee Tucker said she has finally finished all the evaluation forms for the village employee. She added Admin secretary and deputy clerk position. The reviews are going from once a year to twice a year with the board reviewing dept heads and setting goals. Petruska/Smith motion to approve the new evaluation forms and timeline. All ayes-motion carried. N. 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. NOTE: The Village Board did not go into closed session. President Gorsegner said that this can all be discussed in open session. The Village auditor had been contacted to find out about the request from the Town to put any surplus money that fund 800 may have at the end of 2026 into a fund to help offset the 2027 budget. The Village Auditor stated that any surplus in fund 800 would need to go back to the General Fund to pay back the deficit. It was mentioned that the name for the Town Chair would need to be changed. Board members agreed that everything looked good in the current version presented and to let the Town know. Petruska/Smith motion to approve the contract as written today and present it to the Town Board. All ayes-motion carried. President Gorsegner will email the town supervisors tonight and asked the Clerk if she could email them the contract tomorrow. Wallace/Smith motion to adjourn at 7:46 pm. All ayes-motion carried. Respectfully submitted, Laurie Mueller, Village Clerk/Treasurer Minutes approved without corrections Dec. 15, 2025