City Council

Regular Council Meeting February 24, 2020 1. Council President Amanda Milne called the meeting to order at 7:00. Present were Council members David Butler, Kale Dankenbring, Dara Carmichael and Larry Finley. Also present were City Superintendent JR Landenberger, City Clerk Lila Whitmore, and City Attorney Lauren Reyelts. Mayor Scott Schultz and Sheriff Beeson were absent. 2. Minutes from the February 10 Council meeting were distributed and read. It was moved by Kale and seconded by David to approve the minutes as written. Motion passed. 3. Visitors – Bird City Councilman Devin Conley asked if the Council would be interested in selling the skid steer backhoe attachment. After some discussion a motion was made by Larry and seconded by Kale to sell the skid steer backhoe attachment to the City of Bird City for $4,250. Motion passed. 4. Attorney Report - a) Attorney Reyelts is working on updating Ordinance 615 which had been passed for the enhanced cereal malt beverages. The ordinance effectively repealed all of Chapter 3 Article 2 but did not include several original sections of Article 2 that are needed, sections 216 thru 221. A new ordinance will need to be passed and she is working on that. She also recommended adding an amendment to Chapter 3 Article 3 regarding the procedure for the application and permit to serve alcoholic liquor at special events. b) Progress is being made on the bond issue. Gilmore and Bell has provided information on the term of the bonds and what the annual payments would be. The cost of the street project is approximately $812,000. The principal and interest payments for the bond issue would be $50,000 on a 20 year, $65,000 on a 15 year, and $95,000 on a 10 year. More details, such as what is expected to be generated on the sales tax, what is the maximum bond issue, what the payments are on each term, what the interest rate is, and what the terms of prepayment would be, are needed for the Council to make a decision. Lila will speak with Attorney Day. c) JR indicated that the trees for the street project were not actually part of the CDBG grant application so we can go ahead and move forward with obtaining bids for that. A motion was made by Kale and seconded by David to accept and file the Attorney report. Motion passed. Attorney Reyelts left the meeting. 5. Sheriff’s Report - none 6. New Business: a. A motion was made by Dara and seconded by Larry to approve the renewals of the following trash waiver applications: David Yost – Airport Hangar at Cheyenne County Airport, Carla Lampe – 216 ½ W. Webster, Pete Jensen – 122 N. Quincy, Kody Krien – 1470 Rd O, Althea Lebow – 315 S. College. Motion passed. b. A motion was made by David and seconded by Dara to approve the Chicken Permit for Chris LaBarge – 314 S. College. Motion passed. It was noted that the property at 210 E. Webster has chickens but has not been permitted. JR will send a notice to the resident of that property. c. A motion was made by Larry and seconded by Kale to approve the Mobile Home Park License for Tommie Peter – 502 S. Valley. Motion passed. d. The Council discussed the updated Bandshell Rental Agreement and the Special Event Application. The topic was tabled to allow more time for review. A citizen has asked if the bandshell rental fee can be refunded if the rental is no longer needed. The current application indicates the fee is nonrefundable. The Council decided that it should be refundable if notice is given at least 6 weeks prior to the event date. Lila will include this on the updated rental agreement. David asked about painting the seating at the bandshell. JR had contacted Kevin Bowman in Goodland about this but has not heard back. JR will contact him. 7. Old Business: a. Property Cleanup – JR will follow up on the status of the proceedings on the Toler property. He will also touch base with Attorney Reyelts regarding other properties that are on the list and will talk with Sheriff Beeson regarding possible code violations at Lampe Motorsports. b. Projects Pending – a) A motion was made by Kale and seconded by Dara to approve the purchase of seven Chromebooks for City Council/City Clerk/City Attorney use at a cost not to exceed $2000. Motion passed. b) Amanda spoke to Jeff Stewart with KDOT and the State has changed their  plans again. There was considerable discussion regarding the access roads and crossovers and the need to establish ownership. A motion was made by Kale and seconded by David to authorize up to $2000 for a title search to be completed to confirm ownership of the property. Motion passed. Amanda will meet with Attorney Reyelts and get her up to speed. c. Streets Project – Follow up letters will need to be sent to the residents whose property has curb and gutter repairs that will need to be done. Letters were initially sent showing the cost of the curb and gutter replacement and also indicating if there were trees that needed to be removed. Lila will look into this. She will also touch base with Justine at NWKP&DC to find out if there are any notification requirements to the property owners as far as the grant is concerned. 8. Building Permits – A motion was made by Kale and seconded by David to approve the following building permits: Republican Valley Vet Clinic – 429 E. Hwy 36, new addition; Tim Raile – 602 S. Felzien, metal office building; Tim Raile – 605 S. Felzien, grain bin; Hal & Susan Griffin – 517 S. Quincy, porch. Motion passed. The address for the grain bin needs to be confirmed. 9. Superintendent Report – a) The boiler at the power plant has been fixed. However it is 37 years old and should be replaced. JR will be obtaining a price. b) Ward Electric is the electrical contractor that was the low bidder on the electrical infrastructure improvements. JR has made contact with them and is working to negotiate for the work to be done on both feeders 1 and 3. JR discussed a proposed plan where the City would commit a set amount of funds ($300,000) for an initial pilot project. Materials would be purchased for the entire electrical upgrade project. Whatever funds are left would be used for the work time and equipment to complete the initial project. The materials would then be available to complete further work over the next few years. He will be getting pricing information from Stanion Electric for the materials and will come back with more details. c) JR will be attending the Sunflower conference in Wichita on March 10-11. d) Hill Trash Service is looking into using automated side trash pickup. It will require specific placement of the trash bins. e) The property in the Industrial Park that was sold to Tim Raile has been turned over to him. f) JR is looking into trading the large bucket truck for something smaller that would be more useable. g) McAtee Construction has not yet provided estimates for the street pans and alleys. h) Support for the current water read system ends at the end of next year. JR would like to upgrade to a more efficient reader system. A motion was made by Kale and seconded by David to approve the upgraded system at a cost of $17,000. Motion passed. This will require the planned upgrade of the computers in the Clerk’s office to be completed as well. i) The County is planning to rent a Cat mill machine for some work. JR would like to possibly utilize the equipment while it is available to do some work on the streets in the Sunny Hill area. j) The ArcGIS, which is the FEMA required mapping system that was implemented several years ago, is now a completely live GPS utility marking system. JR will be purchasing a couple of portable IPads to be used with the system. k) There is a procurement policy that will need to be approved by the Council for the CDBG grant. Lila will send it out to the Council for review prior to the next meeting. l) There is a State requirement for a City of our size to have 2 employees certified in both water and wastewater. With the resignation of a current certified employee, JR requested Lila find out if other cities have a wage offset for employees who obtain certification. She will look into this. It was moved by Larry and seconded by Dara to accept and file the Superintendent report. Motion passed. 10. Clerk Report – a) Lila shared information with the Council on the 2020 Governing Body Institute to be held in Manhattan on April 24 and 25. Council member Butler plans to attend. b) A citizen has asked for clarification on what type of bags can be used for trash. JR, and the Council, agreed that trash must be bagged in bags that are appropriate for trash containment. Grocery bags, such as Walmart bags, are too thin and tear easily and should not to be used. Lila had confirmed this with Hill Trash service as well. c) A motion was made by Kale and seconded by Larry to approve the following Bandshell Rental Agreements: Vanessa Wieck and Crockett Stortz – May 16, wedding; Mercedes Ritchey and Ethan Kinner – June 6, wedding. Motion passed. Lila requested 2 minutes of executive session for non-elected personnel for an employee’s status. It was moved by Dara and seconded by Kale to accept and file the Clerk Report. Motion passed. 11. Council Comments: David – asked why the Stearman Fly-In was not being done anymore. JR pointed out that it was not a City sponsored event and had been organized by Robert Grace. Robert would have more information on why it was ended. Kale – none Dara – none Larry – The Alumni Association has requested  to block the street between the parks for the Alumni celebration. Council approved. They have turned in their Bandshell rental application but still need to come to the Council to share their plans and to obtain approval for the special event. Larry indicated that the pool will be open from 1-6 free of charge during Alumni. The pool board has started accepting applications for the pool. 12. Council President Comments – none 13. At 8:38 a motion was made by Larry and seconded by Kale for the City Council along with all those present to recess into executive session for the non-elected personnel exception to discuss an employee’s status, the open meeting to resume at 8:40. Motion passed. At 8:40 the open meeting resumed. A motion was made by Kale and seconded by Dara to accept the resignation of Blaine Werner. Motion passed. 14. Adjournment: It was moved by Larry and seconded by David to adjourn the meeting. Motion passed. ___________________________________________ City Clerk