The Garretson City Council held its second special meeting of the month of September, and while the overall goal was to approve the budget prior to the September 30 deadline, the council had plenty of ground to cover, with a committee report from the Garretson Ambulance and an update from city engineer Chad Hanisch of Infrastructure Designs with regards to drainage on 5th St and in the new addition.
After a quick report from the Ambulance, the Parks Board gave a quick update on Lights in the Park. They will be pursuing the effort in conjunction with Grow Garretson, with a request for decorators starting at the beginning of October. There’s a possibility that Palisades State Park will also be doing a Lights in the Park event, and the Commercial Club set up a committee to ensure efforts are coordinated.
Drainage Update
The council then had Chad Hanisch of Infrastructure Designs give an update on the drainage in the new addition. The council had asked Hanisch to explore the costs of installing a drain pipe instead of an open swale or ditch at the last regular meeting, and were heavily leaning toward that option regardless of cost.
The estimate, however, had come back from Nielsen Construction at a cost of around $50,000-$70,000, versus the initial estimate of $19,000 for the swale. Part of the increase in cost would be the need to use a subcontractor, Metro, instead of the equipment Nielsen had on hand. This meant the council had to weigh the pros and cons.
City Maintenance Supervisor Craig Nussbaum then pointed out that he had also requested an informal estimate from Vandersnick Excavating and DSG that came in substantially less, even with the cost of the pipe. The council approved a motion by council member Dave Bonte to pursue the drain pipe option but not to exceed $30,000.
Hanisch then updated the council about the water line project on 5th Street and Highway 11. A leak under the river on Highway 11 had been discovered, as the project hadn’t been able to pass the pressure test in order to complete hook up to parts of western and downtown Garretson. Luckily, the leaking pipe is within a casing, so replacement won’t be a huge undertaking.
However, the completion date for the entire water line project had officially been September 25. As that was two days away, Hanisch was certain it would not be completed on time, and steps had already been taken by Infrastructure Designs to have the company make its case for why liquidated damages should not begin. Hanisch said that while the company had had reasonable emergencies and issues crop up to delay the project, it was their duty to ensure they were following up, and they had not yet given a new completion date to Infrastructure Designs. A motion to limit the company to September 30 died for a lack of a 2nd, with the council deciding to wait for a response within a reasonable time frame.
Budget Negotiations
After approving the TIF project plan and the new zoning regulations and tabling a revision to the septic and sewer ordinance, the council moved to negotiations on the 2020 budget.
City Finance Officer Anna Uhl started the discussion by noting that the budget as it currently stood was $68,000 over, but had suggestions to help balance it out. A line item of $10,000 had been set aside to improve lighting within Garretson, and while she and the council were aware that there are parts of Garretson that are definitely in high need of improvement, since the streets project had not yet been completed, she recommended putting that off one more year so it could all be done at one time.
Tuckpointing the bathhouse at Splitrock Park had a line item of $42,000 and the dam had a line item of $50,000, but she recommended waiting for both as well. For the bathhouse, this would give the parks board and council more time to explore grants toward placing a roof and tuckpointing at the same time. Uhl was hopeful the dam repair project could wait until January 2021, as that would hopefully allow for the water to lower after two very wet summers.
Her other suggestions were to eliminate a water analysis specification and to leave it as a lump sum within water, sewer, streets just in case an extra expense came up, and to eliminate the line item for updating the GIS mapping until more employees were in the office and could help undertake such a project.
The council agreed that all suggestions were good ones, and by removing those options, it would leave the city with a bit of a surplus that could be used in case an emergency came up during the year.
City councilmember Tom Godbey then asked if the budget included raises and bonuses for city employees, something he has fought against in years past as a community member. Uhl replied that yes, there was a 3% cost of living raise included.
Godbey then asked about the line item for the Parks Maintenance Supervisor. He has been in disagreement with this position from its beginning, but the rest of the council explained that those hours devoted to it are above and beyond what Parks Maintenance Supervisor Randy Megard already devotes to his part time city employee position, and that he’s done a lot of work that would otherwise not have been completed over the past two summers. Overall, the council and the City are very happy with the current state of the Parks, and are more than happy to allot those funds.
However, a quick discussion did ensue about merging the position into Megard’s overall job description and pay rate. Uhl said this would make her job much easier, and the council agreed.
Uhl also said there were line items for the addition of two City employees, a full-time maintenance position and a part-time office administrative assistant position.
After noting that the cost of law enforcement had gone up slightly to $79,378 (43 hours per week at $35.50 per hour) from $77,000, the council then moved on to subsidy requests.
Council member Richelle Hofer said, “Everyone seems to be doing a good job and moving things forward, so let’s keep requests where they’re at.”
The council agreed, then had a discussion about restructuring employee benefits, but decided to have a full discussion about it a later time, and approved the 2020 budget as amended before adjourning.
The next regular meeting of the City Council will be on Monday, October 7 at 6:30 pm at the Legion. The public is always invited.
