Called To Order
President Carlsrud called the meeting to order at 3:30 PM.
Roll Call
Members present: President Carlsrud, Commissioner Magnuson, Commissioner Bishop, Commissioner Erickson, and Commissioner Gulmon.
Others present: City Administrator Crawford, City Attorney Martineck, Finance Director Richter, Deputy Auditor Klein, Public Works Accountant/Manager Jacobson, City Assessor Hansen, Electrical Superintendent Senf, Police Chief Hatcher, PW Superintendent Klemisch, Fire Chief Magnuson, Sanitation Supervisor Swart, Water Plant Supervisor Hesch, Chad Petersen from KLJ, Tracy Eslinger from Moore.
1. Department Reports:
Water Plant Supervisor Hesch stated he received his consumer confidence packet and has been in touch with ND Rural Water. They should be coming next week and it’s all set up to go to the printer. The quality of water coming in from the river is good for the winter time. We’re buffering it with the well water right now so it’s staying at the 46 degrees. We received our tractor combo which has helped clean away all the snow. We plan to get lots of good use out if that.
Electrical Superintendent Senf reported three outages for the month. Wind and ice were a factor, one was a connector and the other was the rolling black out which was out of our control. Other than we’re trimming trees and doing a thermal scan that we had done by MRES and fixing those issues.
Fire Chief Magnuson reported 15 fire calls last month, ten city, four rescue and one rural call. We started having drill the second Thursday of February. Extinguisher business is going well. Since we started we have sold 45 fire extinguishers, 76 inspections, 26-6 year services and so far to date we have taken in $4,634. We did get our ISO audit back and it was a good report. The city stays at a level 4, for a volunteer department that’s good. Our rural did get a better rating. They let us use some of our city infrastructure. The biggest issue that gets us is the hydrants. We were probably about 5 points from moving up to the next level.
Sanitation Supervisor Swart reminded businesses to have the areas clean around their dumpsters. Also, for everyone to have their garbage out by 7 am.
PW Superintendent Klemisch reported they went around town and got as much snow off the streets they could. We’ve also been going around trimming trees.
Police Chief Hatcher reported they have been busy with some large scale events that have taken place recently. Due to the nice weather we are able to get our windows replaced sooner. We received an AED grant so those will be getting replaced with the next generation.
Finance Director Richter reported that we are selling Chamber Bucks at the Auditor’s Department now. Kudos to Brenda and Brandy, they are really doing a nice job taking care of the people that are coming in for them.
City Assessor Hansen stated the Equalization Meeting is scheduled for April 13th.
2. Review monthly bills/reports.
Finance Director Richter reported for February we had bills of about $1.55 million and some of the items included paying our annual WSI bill of $27,000, we have $200,000 in the Chamber Bucks promotion and $12,000 above that for labor and promotion that we paid out to the Chamber. The PD purchased their Durango which was about $26,500, the electrical department had their substation repairs at about $56,000 and also purchased a skid steer at about $65,000. The water treatment plant purchased their mower for $46,000 and the slope mower that will be shared by a couple of different departments for $58,850 and also our monthly purchase power for about $371,000. The balance is payroll, benefits and operations.
Commissioner Gulmon added that due to the increase in fees we were able to remove the Midwest Inspection $50,000 from the Cares Act funds so that will leave a balance in those funds from 2020 to $88,117.
3. Discuss Load Pass.
City Administrator Crawford stated that we had several times this year where people would apply for an overweight permit and all the City would collect was the $25 permit fee. We were not collecting the amount for the actual overage fees. With Load Pass you pay the $1500 set up fee and $500 membership and they do all the work and the city would still see a profit.
4. Discuss requesting funding from the State Water Commission for Storage Building and site costs for a 2022 project.
City Commissioner Gulmon stated the committee keeps coming back to the lime pit area even though there is a significant cost in site prep which is some of the reason we’re proposing a 5000 sq. ft. building instead if the 10,000 sq. ft. We agreed we should move forward in requesting funding from the State Water Commission. If we move forward it would be a 2022 project. The main goal for this project is to get the flood walls protected.
5. Discuss bids for Paving Improvement District 119/119B (7th Ave W/4th St NW/2nd Ave NW).
Chad Peterson from KLJ stated we opened bids for this project and received three. The engineers estimate for the project was just under $3.3 million. The bids ranged from $2,925,187 to just under $3.5 million. Sellin Brothers was the low bidder. At this time we are not ready to recommend awarding the project at the commission level. We do need to review the bids with the NDDOT to make sure everything is in order.
Adjourn
The meeting was adjourned at 4:25 PM.