10/6/2020 Finance Meeting Minutes

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Called To Order at 2:30 PM

President Carlsrud called the meeting to order at 2:30 PM.

Roll Call

Members present: President Carlsrud, Commissioner Magnuson, Commissioner Bishop, Commissioner Erickson, and Commissioner Gulmon.

Others present: City Attorney Martineck, City Auditor Richter, Deputy Auditor Klein, Public Works Accountant/Manager Jacobson, City Assessor Hansen, Chad Petersen from KLJ, Fire Chief Magnuson, Police Chief Hatcher, Electrical Superintendent Senf, Operations Superintendent Klemisch, Mike Opatz from Houston Engineering

Electrical Superintendent Senf reported 4 outages for the month, 3 squirrels and 1 tree branch.  City Park lighting is completed.  Working on 5th Ave.  Skyline Villa is finished.  Love’s is completed other than the main service, waiting on the electrician.

Commission Topics:

  1. Discussion about removing flag pole on North side of City Hall building.
  2. Discussion around selling the extra land the City owns.
  3. Discussion around Elk’s Letter.
  4. Discussion about cold storage.
  5. Brainstorming Session will be added to another meeting due to time restraints.
  6. MRES and NDLC training report was deferred to November Finance Meeting.

Department Reports:

Operations Superintendent Klemisch reported the tree was removed by Chautauqua.  Clean up week is complete.  Next year we are considering moving it a week later to hopefully have summer help available.  Thanks to KPH and Jack Moritz for helping with the water main breaks.  Tony Gille is scheduled to do the concrete work. 

Police Chief Hatcher reported they will be getting around more taking care of the car complaints.  There was an incident at Jefferson school so we are researching additional safety options.  Considering dropping the speed limit in the school zone to 15mph, 20 is still pretty fast for a school zone.  Battle of the Badges blood drive is next week, vote Team Law!

Fire Chief Magnuson reported 10 calls last month, 9 for the city and 1 rural.  This week is Fire Prevention and since we can’t go around to the schools we made a video.  Battle of the Badges next week, vote Team Fire!  The final data for the census has been moved to October 30th. 

Review monthly bills/reports

Finance Director Richter reported $1.5 million in bills for the month. $430,000 spent on 5th Ave NW, $207,000 on bond payments $142,000 on Fire Department payroll and a couple other miscellaneous that put us over the $1 million with our regular operations and payroll. 

Discuss Building Fees

City Administrator Crawford reported she received commercial fees from various towns for comparison.  We want to build Valley City but we cannot let the fees end up costing us.  Resolution 2263 will be added to the Commission meeting to add the “Use of outside consultants for plan review, inspections, or both, including administrative and overhead costs. Actual costs” back onto the resolution as it was removed back in 2018.  Would also like to see some of our current fees such as sign fees adjusted. If you want to keep the building inspection fees stay the same we can look into charging a building inspection fee.

Discuss CLOMR

Chad Petersen from KLJ and Mike Opatz from Houston Engineering presented six top options to get the Commission’s feedback.  Commission chose to remove the Golf club bypass and the Tourist Park as an option.  Mayor Carlsrud asked they come up with a plan and if we need we can set up a special meeting.     

Adjourn

The meeting was adjourned at ­4:52 PM.

Posted in Announcements, Finance Meeting Minutes.