City Council Meetings

Watertown City Council T Regular Meeting Mayor Michael Walters Adam Pawelk F Fred McGuire Dan Schuette Kay Thul 1. Call To Order And Roll Call A 1/23/2024 - Minutes Pursuant to due call and notice thereof, the regular meeting of the Watertown City Council was R called to order in the Council Chambers of City Hall at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, January 23, 2024, by Mayor Mike Walters. Councilmembers present: Mike Walters, Adam Pawelk, and Fred McGuire. D Councilmembers absent: Dan Schuette and Kay Thul . City Staff present: City Administrator Jake Foster, Administrative Service Director Michael Sommerfeld, Fire Chief Tom Hanson, and Public Works Superintendent Mike Dressel 2. Adopt Agenda COUNCILMEMBER PAWELK MOVED TO APPROVE THE AGENDA AS PRESENTED. COUNCILMEMBER MCGUIRE SECONDED. MOTION CARRIED 3-0. 3. Consent Agenda Discussion And Approval COUNCILMEMBER MCGUIRE MOVED TO APPROVE THE CONSENT AGENDA AS PRESENTED. COUNCILMEMBER PAWELK SECONDED. MOTION CARRIED 3-0. 3.A. 3A - January 9, 2024 - Regular Meeting Minutes 3.B. 3B - January 9, 2024 - Work Session Minutes 3.C. 3C - WWTF Pay Application No. 20 3.D. 3D- LMC Grant Navigator Funds Application Approval 3.E. 3E - Mobile Food Unit - Elephant Joe's Coffee 3.F. 3F - 2024 Fee Schedule Amendment 3.G. 3G - Dependent Care FSA  3.E. 3E - Mobile Food Unit - Elephant Joe's Coffee 3.F. 3F - 2024 Fee Schedule Amendment 3.G. 3G - Dependent Care FSA 4. Open Forum Chief Tom Hanson reported on the last months activity. The fire department had a very busy Start of the year so as of right now. We are up to about 40 calls, so we've been averaging better then two calls a day, we just came off of a really busy stretch here. Since Friday, we had 13 calls. Now that 2023 has come to a close, Chief Hanson presented a overview of the activity from 2023. For the T year we totaled out at 534 calls, and then that's about 6% lower than we did in 2022. 2022 was an abnormally high year for us compared to the previous last 10 years. Typically we have three buckets that we lump our calls into. We have fires, medicals, and then rescue calls. Fires obviously, fires, smoke alarms, fire alarms, investigations of smoke, gas leaks, grass fires, and then our firefighter rehab LSU program also falls under that umbrella. We also obviously run the medicals F and assist to Ridgeview, and within that bucket we also account for lift assist. So any lift assist calls that we have will fall under the medical category. The leftover balance is for rescue type calls and that's anything from a vehicle accident, any water or ice rescue events, any other technical rescue events, could be trench, could be rope rescue, search for a lost person, things like that. And then all of our weather spotting events and will fall under a rescue category. A The breakdown of the calls that we ran over the last year: 3% for rescue calls. 21% Fires, and 63% Medical calls. The breakdown of where we went by district for all the townships that we serve: 74% of our calls were within the city limits of Watertown here, 7% Watertown Township, 3% Hollywood R Township, 10%, Franklin Township and 1% Woodland Township of our call volume. The breakdown of the type of incidents and this does not segregate versus fire, medical, rescue. This just shows all the calls that we have, of the 534, where we went. There are a lot of different categories, probably close to 200 different categories we can pick from as we run calls. We obviously do not use all those. The big bucket would be the other, because there's just a lot of D different things in there that we've ran. 42% One or Two Family Dwelling, 30% Care Facilities in town, 2% of our call volume was either the high school, middle school, CCLS, elementary school, 6% Highway, roadway or street, so typically our car accident, and 6% Apartment Complexes. The all-call model is the traditional paid-on-call. The pagers go off, everybody's on the fire department, their pager goes off, says we have this type of call at this address, so everybody comes to the station, gets in the appropriate gear, and then responds to the call in the appropriate vehicle. With the advent of our station crew and duty crew model, so that's where we only trip the pagers of select people that are scheduled to work that evening. That actually makes up in combination 74% of our call volume. We're able to manage 74% or in the last year we were able to manage 74% of our call volume by using anywhere from 2 to 4 people the entire complement of firefighters. From a labor standpoint, we're saving the stress on our firefighters because they're not up at the station for 534 calls. They're only signed up to work certain nights. We're allowing them to have a night off when there's another crew in place. This model seems to be working well for us. I envision us probably investing a little bit more time and energy into staffing this way, as it is a positive thing for not only the city, but for the fire department staff members as well. We'll also be working on the annual report, so you'll have that in the very near future and I can speak to that after that comes out if you'd like as well., I just wanted to mention that we did have a pretty good significant call last weekend. This goes to show the importance of fire alarms and cooking safety. We had a call in one of our apartments a resident had went to bed and accidentally left a burner on and woke about six, eight hours later and the smoke alarms were going off in our apartment. Luckily everything was contained to just the stove but it could have been a lot worse if it weren't for smoke alarms and early warning devices. 5. New/Old Business  weekend. This goes to show the importance of fire alarms and cooking safety. We had a call in one of our apartments a resident had went to bed and accidentally left a burner on and woke about six, eight hours later and the smoke alarms were going off in our apartment. Luckily everything was contained to just the stove but it could have been a lot worse if it weren't for smoke alarms and early warning devices. 5. New/Old Business 5.A. 5A - Bucket Truck Public Service Superintendent, Mike Dressel gave the background on the bucket truck need stating, the City Council meeting back in February 14th of 2023, Council approved the EAB management plan that we took into practice last year and took down about 40 EAB trees that were either in boulevards, right of ways, or on city property. We continue to do that this year moving forward probably for about the next eight years or so depending upon how many trees T are affected and how many actual ash trees are out there. I was conservative probably on the 400 number. I'm guessing there's probably 500-600 that would eventually have to come down in our community. So along with doing that, we, with City Security, a chipper that we've been using a lot lately to remove EAB trees and then other trees that have been been damaged by wind or by disease or whatever. We'd like to purchase a bucket truck to help us remove some more of F these EAB trees and other trees that are on city property and or in the right-of-way. We have budgeted about $75,000 this year for a bucket truck that would reach a minimum of 40 feet working height and a 25 horizontal reach so that would be 25 feet off to the side of the truck. I would also want to make sure that this truck is equipped with four-wheel drive and it would also be inspected by aerial lift company to make sure that it meets all the requirements and all A the safety equipment is there for it as a used piece of equipment along with a DOT inspection. We've been actively looking for a bucket truck that's within our budget and meets our specifications. Staff would like to get authorization to purchase a bucket truck that would not exceed the budget amount of $75,000. City Administrator Jake Foster reminded council, this isn't our typical process. Usually we come R to you to request quotes, come back with a handful of quotes and then request an authorization of purchase. Given the situation, this is actually something we did prior with the sprayer that might have purchased last summer. Just the fact that we are looking for used equipment and that used equipment turns around really quickly. D Councilmember Pawelk, stated he is concerned with the purchase of a used piece of equipment and the potential problems of purchasing a used piece of equipment. Mr. Dressel explained this equipment will not be used on a daily basis, for this reason it makes more sense to purchase a used piece of equipment. Mr. Dressel would also like to reach out to the manufacturing company or specific mechanic to research the piece of equipment once one has been found that is suitable. Once one has been located, Mr. Dressel is hoping to have it for use, at the facility with 10-20 days from purchase. There would need to be some form of training to properly use the aerial use apparatus.. Mayor Walters, expressed his concern regarding the purchase of a used piece of equipment. Councilmember Pawelk, expressed his concern if the current staff have the proper and PPE to operate a piece of equipment like this. Mr. Dressel that the City does already have the PPE to operate this and our current yearly safety training offers a safety class on this type of equipment through safeassurance. Councilmember Pawelk asked if there is definitely a need for this piece of equipment. Mr., Dressel explained it the removal of removing a tree to contract it out is on average $1,000 per tree. If the city is able to remove the tree the city charges the resident for 50% of the cost, which this fee goes back into the city's revenue versus the full expense being a expense to the city. COUNCILMEMBER MCGUIRE MOVED TO APPROVE THE PURCHASE OF A USED BUCKET TRUCK NOT TO EXCEED THE BUDGETED AMOUNT OF $75,000. COUNCILMEMBER PAWELK SECONDED. MOTION CARRIED 3-0. 5.B. 5B - Batwing Mower Mr. Dressel presented the background on the purchase of batwind mower, on January 9th of the last council meeting, approved authorization for staff to solicit coats for the new Batwing Zero Turn Moor. I did solicit quotes from Toro, Exmark, and Hustler. Just a little background with the three different mowers, or the three different manufacturers, Toro has a hour limit of 2,000 hours and a five-year warranty. So the first two years of all three mowers are unlimited hours. And then after that, it limits the hours of what the warranty covers, or up to five years,  BUCKET TRUCK NOT TO EXCEED THE BUDGETED AMOUNT OF $75,000. COUNCILMEMBER PAWELK SECONDED. MOTION CARRIED 3-0. 5.B. 5B - Batwing Mower Mr. Dressel presented the background on the purchase of batwind mower, on January 9th of the last council meeting, approved authorization for staff to solicit coats for the new Batwing Zero Turn Moor. I did solicit quotes from Toro, Exmark, and Hustler. Just a little background with the three different mowers, or the three different manufacturers, Toro has a hour limit of 2,000 hours and a five-year warranty. So the first two years of all three mowers are unlimited hours. And then after that, it limits the hours of what the warranty covers, or up to five years, whichever one comes first. Toro has 2,000 hours, Exmark has $1,500 and Hustler has $1,200. Like I said, I got three quotes. One was from Bob's Repair for the Hustler, 104-inch mower for $44,702.67 and then from MTI Distributors for a 96 inch Toro for $47,845.74. Staff is recommending the purchase of a Hustler T motor, the 40 horse motor with the oil guard which is a little bit bigger oil reservoir to help cool the engine oil and a little bit more, a little better oil filter system on it for the extended hours of run time. Along with the Tweet Twerf tires, those are just airless tires. We haven't ran those before on any of our mowers, but it seems like every year we run to Hollywood Auto more and more to have our tires patched, which is downtime. For this reason we'd like to try a pair of F these to see if that would eliminate some of our downtime and keep us more and more when the grass is growing. Mr. Dressel stated the out of the door price would be around $28,000, since we would not be getting some of the features that were listed on the quote. Dressel also stated there area few A more mower which will need to be replaced in the next couple years. With the Husler brand they would be able to get all parts locally instead of having to drive to Brooklyn Park to get parts. This particular model would need to be ordered and could be here around the end of April, beginning of May. Mayor Walters stated, I really feel like this piece of equipment is needed. We've added a lot of R mowing over the last five to eight years, even without really adding a lot to our equipment. This thing looks like you could really get some stuff done quickly and proficiently. I like the way that the price came in well under budget and made in the United States. It's from a local company. MAYOR WALTERS MOVED TO ADOPT RESOLUTION 2024-06, AUTHORIZING THE PURCHASE OF A 2024 HUSTLER MOWER. COUNCILMEMBER MCGUIRE SECONDED. D MOTION CARRIED 3-0. 6. Other Reports Mr. Foster stated, the process of getting our new water tower located and set appears that it may be coming to a close on Friday of this week. The land owner now wants to close as soon as possible. Phil Schrupp immediately got on the phone with Xcel Energy and a lot of that planning and all those are already in work, we're not waiting for the closing and getting a head start on all that. Commander Wolleen with the Sheriff's Office let me know today that we'll be receiving a check for just over $27,000 for our 2023 contract reimbursement. This is for the vacancies that we had, anytime we had, shift vacancies. That is actually not including quarter four. I would expect there to be more being sent back to the us. A pretty good chunk of change that we'll be getting back from the police contract and putting the general fund budget. And the last thing I just wanted to make you all aware of is that the audit this year will be taking place in May. Usually we do it a little bit earlier. No concerns from a state regulatory standpoint, anything like that, just with being short-staffed, Michael learning some of the year-end tie-outs on both the utility billing side, but also kind of more of his finance, budget, AP side of things. It's just taking a really long time with Abdo, and rather than, you know, continually reschedule, we just pushed it out to May, knowing that we'll have everything done in advance. But no concerns there, other than it is just a little bit of a departure than what we've done in previous years. 7. Claims COUNCILMEMBER PAWELK MOVED TO APPROVE THE JANUARY 23, 2024 CLAIMS PACKET. COUNCILMEMBER MCGUIRE SECONDED. MOTION PASSED 3-0.  we've done in previous years. 7. Claims COUNCILMEMBER PAWELK MOVED TO APPROVE THE JANUARY 23, 2024 CLAIMS PACKET. COUNCILMEMBER MCGUIRE SECONDED. MOTION PASSED 3-0. 7.A. Claims 8. Adjournment MAYOR WALTERS MOVED TO APPROVE THE JANUARY 23, 2024 CLAIMS PACKET. COUNCILMEMBER MCGUIRE SECONDED. MOTION PASSED 3-0. T 309 Lewis Avenue South; P.O. Box 279, Watertown, MN 55388 ________________________________________________________ AF ATTEST:__________________________________________________ Jake Foster, City Administrator Michael Walters, Mayor D R