Called To Order

President Carlsrud called the meeting to order at 3:30 PM.

Roll Call

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

Department Reports

Sanitation Supervisor Swart reported Jamestown Communications finished installing the cameras on the trucks.  The Transfer Station is now closed on Saturday’s though May and we have a part time employee that started. 

Water Superintendent Hesch reported this as the first weekend we tried running without Sunday and it will be just fine.  We just have to monitor it.  Commissioner Bishop asked about the standpipe and the water tower up by the armory.  The standpipe has not been fixed.  After inspection it was determined some of the caulking was bad resulting in pinhole leaks.  It will need to be drained and have a contractor some in to fix it.  Clint has information regarding the water tower.

Electrical Superintendent Senf reported zero outages for the month of October.  West end underground project is finished.  Gaukler 36-plex underground is in and we are waiting for the transformer.  Waterfront Meadows contractor will be digging the trench for us.  In regards to the ordinance on the agenda, to make if fair if you aren’t in city limits we would like them to pay the full price vs us paying the 200 feet since they aren’t paying taxes.  Inside city limits they would have to for the overhead after 200 feet.

Fire Chief Magnuson reported the covid third shot will take place at the firehall next week.  We picked up some additional businesses for fire extinguishers.  Should out to the members of our department and the community.  We are getting new doors installed and the funds came from some of the fundraisers we have held.  The building shipped today and should be here on the 5^th and then Enterprise would be here next week.

Police Chief Hatcher reported that on Thursday at 1:30 up at the DOT office the highway patrol colonel will be in town to present some awards to one of the local highway patrolman as well as one of our police officers that helped out on the highway.  One award is a purple heart, very prestigious and not awarded very often.  It’s open to the public.  We are full staffed and the last person finished their field training last night.

Operations Supervisor Klemisch reported the flushing of the hydrants will be wrapping up in the next day or so.  There is a startup planned tentatively for Thursday for the west end lift station.  Construction is wrapping up for the year with some seeding taking place.  Snow equipment is ready. The NW water tower by DQ is in rough shape.  We are trying to get money in the budget but anything we do is pretty minimal right now until we figure out the plan. 

City Administrator Crawford requested to move item 5 with 3 on the agenda.  Discussion has been taking place about c

City Attorney Martineck introduced Katie Henderson, our new Public Works Administrative Assistant. 

Review Monthly Bills/Reports Finance Director Richterreported we are at $1,780,770 which includes debt service at $137,419, Forestry & F&B Grants at $33,461, PFP CLOMR, $14,670, Fire Hall Addition at $85,186, West End Lift Station at $276,799, construction projects at $418,313 and MRES at $288,800.  The remaining $526,122 is for our regular operations.

Discuss Public Works 1.

City Administrator Crawford stated due to some of the hiring issues, the cross work that goes on in different departments and to become more of a team, we are proposing for 2022 is to merge the Street Specialist 1 and Sanitation Specialist 1 to now a Public Works Specialist 1 at the B-21 level.  The Public Works Technician is at the A-13 level for those that come in and don’t have their CDL yet.

Discuss NDPERS.

City Attorney Martineck stated we have looked into NDPERS for a while and have now made some progress getting it here.  There will be a couple different options, one for safety employees such as the FD and PD and another for non-safety employees.  The city would still put in 10% and the employee makes up the difference.  Any current employee can keep their current retirement plan if they choose or go on NDPERS, any new hires would only have NDPERS as an option.

Discuss NDDOT Urban Grant Program Application.

Chad Petersen stated this was discussed earlier in January and the city has benefitted from this program before.  This opened for applications and the deadline is December 31^st, 2021.

Discus NDDOT Urban Grant Program Application for Wintershow Road Shared-Use Path.

Chad Petersen stated this was discussed previously and there was support that this path was desired.  The document shows 8^th Ave to the Regional Technology center split into two phases. 

Discussion regarding Vacate Four Bottle Road Frontage Road.

Electrical Superintendent Senf stated the electrical poles are out of the ground and there is one that is starting to tip.  It would be expensive to even do just the bare minimum fix.  If vacated, the current property owners would gain the additional land up to the right of way.

City Administrator Crawford added that it is currently on our Urban Roads program and we need to get John Deere added.  In order to add one you need to remove one.

Adjourn The meeting was adjourned at ­4:53 PM.

Called To Order

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

Roll Call

Members present: President Carlsrud, Commissioner Magnuson, Commissioner Bishop and Commissioner Gulmon, Commissioner Erickson (2:45)

Commission Topics

Discussion took place around the following topics:

Commissioner Long Range Planning Ideas,

RRVWSP information

Department of Water Resources Funding

Department Reports

Sanitation Supervisor Swart requested people try to get closer to the piles when dumping in the grass site.  We are looking for another two new employees.

City Administrator Crawford presented some additional options to try to bring in new employees on the sanitation department.  They will post for part-time positions at a higher wage but no benefits.

Water Superintendent Hesch reported he and Clint will be going to a convention next week and Sherry will be recognized for her Operator’s Award.

Electrical Superintendent Senf reported they have given a manufacturer west of town a bid for 3 phase.  Finished up Smith Lumber today.  We’re having trouble getting quotes back for the WAPA sub.  Everyone wants concrete and its sounds like they are hard to push into the ground.  Either we do the work or hire someone in to do the work.  People don’t want to bid since it’s a foundation.

Fire Chief Magnuson reported this week is Fire Prevention week.  We’ll be waiting until spring to have our open house after we get the addition done.  10 true calls of service last month.  Building is on schedule.  Battle of the Badges is next week.  We picked up all the Summit and Bergan’s properties.  It is working and the numbers will increase.

Operations Supervisor Klemisch reported the next couple of weeks will be busy getting everything wrapped up for the season.  Will start flushing hydrants either this week or next week.  We are a little slower since several of the street crew have been getting sent over to sanitation.  

City Administrator Crawford reported that we are still under our contract funds in the engineering and contracting services.  Planning and Zoning is more than what the original plan but we never could have guessed that we would have all this going on.  There is a walking trail that Bobby is trying to establish near the property that Dave Zubrod recently purchased.  We agreed to have the trail on the back side of that property but after some discussion with Bobby is sounds like he would like it in another area but Zubrod is not in agreement with the new area.  Discussion took place and it will still in the original location.

Review Monthly Bills/Reports Finance Director Richterreported we are at $2,383,808.22 with MRES at $459,000, purchase of Valley Implements at $470,000, BND debt $348,400, Bluescope for the Fire Hall addition invoice of $78,000, Infrastructure and construction was $372,000 the other two sirens were $21,500.  Payroll was high at $428,000 due to paying the annual fire department payment.

Discuss Image & Enhancement and Food and Beverage Grant Requirements

City Administrator Crawford requested we change the name of the Food and Beverage Grant to the Valley City Tourism Grant due to people not being clear on what the grant is for.  Reading it now it seems it’s for restaurants but it’s not.  The other is that for $1000-$5000 they are required to provide their financial information.  Many have decided not to apply due to this, they are concerned in providing this information for their competition to see.  It’s also cumbersome for $1000, there is no encouragement to apply. 

Commissioner Gulmon added that the two most critical things required should be that the taxes are paid and credit check.

Decision was made to change the name of the grant and removing the requirement to provide financial statements.

Discuss Request for a Path/Trail along Wintershow Road

Chad from KLJ stated this was discussed as a need at the Longest Table event.  We have a few letters of support for a trail along the road.  The discussion happened before the grant information opened up through the DOT.  The application has a deadline of December 31^st, 2021 and the funding is for the 2025 construction season.

Discuss Benches on Main

City Administrator Crawford stated we found out that we cannot put anything on the sidewalk areas that are the white concrete because of ADA.  So originally the thought was to put the benches with backs against the buildings but now that can’t be done and if we set them on the red they don’t work well.  We’d like to get backless benches on Main and move the ones with the backs on Central.

Discuss recommendations from the Special Assessment Commission regarding the 5^th Ave NW Reconstruction Project.

Deputy Auditor Klein stated the Special Assessment Commission met last Wednesday night and had the hearing for 5^th Ave N. They were fine with the amounts listed but if you saw in the minutes they had recommendations.  They would like the city to work on the landscaping, grass on the boulevards and the other was about the seal coat.  They would like it completed sooner than later and the city pick up the cost of that sealcoat.

Commissioner Bishop asked if we are able to withhold payment from the contractors until they fix the issues.

Chad from KLJ stated we are withholding 2% of the contract, we do still have punch list items that need addressing.

Discuss Stan Ryan Easement

City Administrator Crawford stated basically there was an easement previously developed with Stan and he no longer wants it developed that way.  City Administrator Crawford presented another drawing that has been discussed that will allow further development in that area.

Adjourn

The meeting was adjourned at ­4:53 PM.

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.

Department Reports

Water Superintendent Hesch reported that usage for August peaked on the 18^th at 1,381,000 gallons.  The total pumpage from January 1^st to current is 33,254,000 and the average daily pumpage so far for the year is 1,108,000.  It’s usually around 700,000-800,000 but due to the weather it’s up.

Fire Chief Magnuson reported the pumper will be gone for about a month.  The paint is starting to crack and it’s under warranty but it will take about a month to get it fixed.  The rural board is allowing us to move their pumper up to that spot and hopefully in about 2 weeks the new pumper will be here.  They will be marking the catalytic converters on some of our trucks this week.  Preconstruction meeting for the addition is on Thursday, site work is slated to start on the 13^th.  Sunday is the 9/11 motorcycle ride with Gwen as our speaker.  Extinguishers billed out was $2474.82 and we didn’t get $1000 billed out yet for this month. 

Police Chief Hatcher reported that dispatch has moved.  There was also another resignation in the department.  The officer is moving to highway patrol.

Electrical Superintendent Senf reported 2 outages for the month.  One was lightening and the other was failed cutout.  Installing sirens for the fire department.    

President Carlsrud moved to item 5 and 7.

Discuss EV Charging Station

Superintendent Senf stated there has been questions if we will have one.  Superintendent Senf recommended waiting as he is pretty sure the three main dealerships in town will have to put them in on their own and maybe a couple of gas stations.  If we were to do one it would have to be a fast charge and that would be around $80,000 without including the installation or wiring.  Also Tesla installs their own charging stations approximately 200 miles apart due to them having a different type of plug.  You could put one in for about $6,000 but it’s a minimum of 5 hours to charge so if you put that down town, who’s going to stick around for 5 hours to charge their car?  Senf recommends holding off on installing the stations at this time.

Discuss Increase in Cost WAPA Substation Repairs

Superintendent Senf said WAPA asked for additional $80,000 for the sub.  The electrical department can do some of the work if everyone’s okay with it.  It would save about $100,000.  Commission decided to let the electrical department try it and go from there.

Operations Superintendent Klemisch reported there is still an open position in the sanitation department.  We received the cameras to go on the garbage trucks.  Also a reminder of the 32 gallon can limit.

Street department received their new graders and are ready to put them to work.  Also working on some curb stops and old maintenance issues. 

Finance Director Richter stated we changed our agenda format. 

City Administrator Crawford added that Bobby Koepplin had a request to get tree prices on trees for a grant the Beautification Committee had gotten.  The request has been reviewed and there were a couple of changes so at this time it has been sent back to him with the requested changes.

Review monthly bills/reports

Finance Director Richter reported $2.3 million in expenditures for August.  $283,000 in PFP because of purchasing the maintenance building and also the two vacant properties.  The new equipment lease for $68,000, BND some PFP debt service due for another $64,000, invoice for the FD addition for $53,000, construction projects are around $750,000 and MRES is another $460,000.   

Discuss Gravity Drain by the Elks

Chad Petersen from KLJ stated they plan to increase the capacity of the storm sewer system along Main Street.  We have reached out to contractors for pricing and suppliers for availability of materials.  We have found one contractor to do the work this fall.  The issues are we are already in September and we don’t know what kind of fall we’ll have.  We’re recommending waiting until this spring to complete the project.  This project will be KLJ’s project and no dollars will come from the city.

Discuss Removing Cats from Lease Law Requirement

City Administrator Crawford stated there have been requests to remove cats. 

Police Chief Hatcher stated he always thought it was silly to have a leash on a cat but he feels the “animal at large” would still apply if the cat was caught outside their house. 

Review offer to sell City Lot Located North of West Main Street in NP Additions 5 and 6

City Administrator Crawford stated his offer is the same amount but there is an additional section to make the access work.  The other thing requested is that he knows the closing will take a bit so he is requesting to do dirt work prior to closing.  City Administrator Crawford recommended accepting the offer.

City Attorney Martineck stated we would have him sign some sort of agreement so if everything falls through and he already started the dirt work we would be protected.

Ordinance Review

President Carlsrud stated there are several ordinances that are no longer valid.  We will want to start going through and cleaning them up.

Discuss Retirement

City Administrator Crawford stated there has been discussions about different options such as NDPERS.  I would like to have Carl look into it to see what a better option is.  Anyone who is currently employed can choose what plan they want.

Adjourn

The meeting was adjourned at ­4:35 PM.

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.

Department Reports

Electrical Superintendent Senf working on straitening poles and replacing a couple of lines as well.  There were 4 outages, 1 bird, 1 tree and 2 squirrels.  Goal is to complete downtown sub next fall.  There is a request to put security cameras on the new poles in the Rosebud parking lot.  Dickey Rural Network will quote it but before they do they want to know that it’s not going to be something that won’t be allowed.

Water Superintendent Hesch reported that it is still very dry and I do see a lot of usage in the night so that’s good that people are watering at night.  Right now it doesn’t seem that we will have to go on a water restriction.  No concerns with algae bloom since we have the satellite.   

Sanitation Supervisor Swart reported that they are finished screening the compost so they have some really nice black dirt.  We are also looking to hire another employee. 

Operations Superintendent Klemisch reported water and sewer department has been working with the electrical crew upgrading some motors in the lift stations.  We’ll probably be looking at painting the lines next week. 

Discuss Offering for Sale Lots 63-3450012 and 63-3440047.

City Administrator Crawford stated we have an individual interested in purchasing 63-3440047 and a small section of 63-3450012 at $48,200.  The assessed value is $49,200 plus a little more for the extra feet into the other plat.  They need to figure out some information with the DOT regarding the right of way which may take several months, so at this time there is not a time line as to when he would build on it. 

Commissioners requested additional information to better determine the value of the property.

Review Preliminary Budget.

Finance Director Richter stated we do have a change on CVB but it doesn’t affect the mil.

Mary Lee Nielson stated they are in process of looking for a new Marketing Rep for town but in order to do that we are asking to change the payment for the parking lot to $5,000/year so the other portion can be put towards that position.  It’s the same amount in full just spread out for a longer period of time.

Review Monthly Bills and Reports.

We are at $1.9 million for monthly expenditures for July.  We had 3 payrolls, busy in the construction season and those are the majority.  That brings us down to our regular operating charges.

Fire Extinguisher Services Financial Report.

Net income is right around $8500.

Discuss Policy Manual Change.

City Attorney Martineck stated he would like to update our policy to align better with the state’s guidelines and define eligible members that the sick leave can be used on.

Review NDDOT Draft 2022-2025 Valley City Urban Roads Program.

Chad Petersen reported last week the DOT sent out the draft for their Urban Roads Program.  Discussion took place to change 5^th St NW to a later timeframe and add 2^nd Ave NE to 3^rd St NE project so I am looking for confirmation that is still the plan so we can let the DOT know.

Discuss Bids for the Master Lift Station Upgrades Project.

Chad Petersen stated bids were open back in July 16^th.  One bid was received at $464,000, engineers estimate was about $230,000.  We’re over the budget for the year and due to the timeline of everything it may be best for the city to reject and rebid this fall.

Discuss General Resolution that Authorizes the City Administrator to Sell City Property if it’s below a Given Amount and Determine Given Amount.

City Administrator Crawford said this is for personal property under a certain value, not real estate.  Commission agreed that $2500 was a good amount.

Adjourn

The meeting was adjourned at ­4:48 PM.

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 (3:40), and Commissioner Gulmon.

Department Reports

Electrical Superintendent Senf reported one outage.  Finished up the underground in Webster Subdivision.  Finished the alley rebuild and will be getting some locates called in Donny’s subdivision.  Bad news is that our downtown sub, one transformer is out of commission.  Waiting for a quote from HDR.  I would like to convert it to a 115 line vs the 69 line so reinsulate some new poles and possibly a transformer.

Sanitation Supervisor Swart reported the numbers for clean-up week.  We brought in 164.10 tons of garbage since September’s clean-up week and inert was 77.74 tons.

Kevin Jacobson reported for the street department.  Stated there was a little bit of a pressure problem but that’s worked out.  Seemed to be a bad PRV.  We’re working with Grotberg on getting the fire pumps up on both Crestwood and the Industrial Park. 

Water Superintendent Hesch reported the demand for water is going up.  We trying to let people know if they are going to water, please do it in the morning or evening so it can soak into the ground.  Try not to water every day.  Your grass needs to learn to handle the stress in case there is a reason any restrictions have to go on in the future.  Also, for those that fertilize your grass with your hose, get a vacuum breaker on your hose so there isn’t any chance of the fertilizer getting sucked back into the hose and ending up in the system.

Fire Chief Magnuson stated the Fire Department will be holding their Dedication Ceremony June 19^th.

Police Chief Hatcher reported they did some interviews for the open position.  We now have two open positions as another officer has submitted her resignation.  We’ve worked through a few junk areas with the Street Department.  The notices are going out and we’re notifying them and have been trying to work with them to get it cleaned up.

Review monthly bills/reports   

We have just under $1.3 million in bills and expenditures for May.

Discuss NDDOT Urban Grant Program

Chad Petersen from KLJ we have tapped into this program with the Phase I project on Central Ave along with the current project on Main Street.  This is a competitive grant program.  When we started we were just looking at using it for the Streetscape project but there are other components that are in the focus area that could benefit from this.  I wanted to see if there is interest in pursuing this.

Discuss Change Orders for 7^th and 2^nd

City Administrator Crawford stated change orders will be presented differently than before.  Instead of just one lump sum of a change order at the end we will discuss the change orders as we go so everyone can understand where they are coming from.  The first one is us contracting out removal of trees in order to get to the services.  The next one was the manholes.  We had to go up sizes on the pipes and make the manholes bigger because of the pipes.  There’s no way to know this until you get down to in there to see it.  The next was we knew how many services we had but we didn’t know a lot of the PVC pipe went from a house to clean-up.  There were about 14 services that looked like they would be PVC but when they got in there it was clay tile.  Approval was given for the clay tile being replaced with PVC. 

Discuss 2^nd Ave SE in Front of Senior Center

City Administrator Crawford stated this was actually going to be done last fall with the project on 5^th but with the plant shutting down early due to the snow it didn’t get done.  Now we have two different projects going on with two different companies that we’ll get quotes done and then it will be done in October.  The money had already been set aside but we may get a better deal this year.