The Paullina Council met in regular session on Monday May 16. Lynn Porter from Black Hills Energy attended to share with the council a mechanism for revenue the council can adopt if the so choose. Black Hills Energy is the natural gas provider to the City of Paullina. She explained that a community with a franchise to a gas company can choose to impose a franchise fee on the natural gas in lieu of the 1% local option sales tax. She made special mention that if the city chose to adopt the franchise fee at 1% the consumer would not notice any difference, but the city would get the entire 1% rather than a portion of sales tax from the state. A franchise tax and be imposed for anywhere from 1% to 5%. No action was taken.
A public hearing to hear the public comments of the plans, specifications and cost of replacing the aeration devices at the sanitary lagoon was held. There were no public comments. A representative of Beck Engineering was on hand to answer questions and guide the process.
American Rescue Plan Act funds (ARPA) were awarded to the City of Paullina. It received approximately $148,000 with half having been paid to date. Cities are limited to use ARPA funds for water and/or sewer expenses. The Paullina City Council opted to change the sewer pond aerators.
Beck Engineering prepared the plans and oversaw the cost was originally guessed to come in around $200,000 – $230,000. Beck solicited a bid from Triple Point only. Their bid came in at about 150% of expectations, over $494,000. Beck explained that currently demand is high and just one bid was solicited. He expressed his feeling that Triple Point bid high, not concerned about getting the job. The public hearing closed. The council then faced the agenda item to award the contract. Councilman Steve Heeren asked what the engineer thought might happen. There is speculation that prices may keep rising. The engineer also thought that getting more bids for the project may bring the cost down. Council determined that the project at that price was not in the best interest of the city and declined to award the contract. It can be rebid at any time as long as the funds are spent before 2026.
The council opened the public hearing for the budget amendment. No person was present with questions of comments about the money moves to end the city’s fiscal year. None were reported as submitted in any written form. Murphy asked prior to the start of the public hearing that she didn’t think wages were going to be increased. The amendment was to approve the wage increase given to start immediately during the current fiscal year with no wages in the 2022-23 fiscal year. Honkomp reminded the council of that. Following the budget amendment hearing council then looked to pass a resolution to approve the amendment. A motion and second were made to close the public hearing. A motion and second to approve the resolution was made by Jean Unrau and Jay Jones. Mayor Brenda Ebel Kruse then asked for any questions, looking at Murphy and stating that she could ask her question at that time. Councilwoman Lexy Murphy asked about a number from the April treasurer’s report which was approved during the consent agenda not matching the amount for line item “integovernmental” income on the amendment. The newspaper believes the number on the April treasurer’s report was the ending balance of remaining ARPA funds, but currently cannot be confirmed. The April ending balance would be the amount of ARPA funds received to date less any ARPA funds spent.
Councilwoman Carol Honkomp seemed to try to explain that the amended income figure reported on the intergovernmental sources probably didn’t match because the ARPA funds spent were showing in different spending categories while the income was from a variety of sources. Much discussion took place. This discussion made the absence of City Clerk Sandy Fritz notable.
Eventually, the council was able to find all the figures applicable to the amended intergovernmental income in the explanations at the bottom of the amendment. The April treasurer’s report explains money in and money out during the month of April only. The budget amendment is predictive of expected income and spending until the end of the year.
As the discussion continued Mayor Kruse commented that the dollars not identified are somewhat of a mystery. She stated, “That’s a difference of $7883.23.” Council resumed looking. Mayor Kruse Then said, “That’s a difference of about $8000 that’s missing.” The discussion progressed to Kruse saying, “That’s an issue. Well, that isn’t an issue, we may have an issue with the treasurer’s report and the budget amendment as well. Kruse went on to suggest that the approval of the treasurer’s report may have to be undone and the budget amendment be postponed. Discussion of state time requirements for a complete amendment took place. Kruse led a discussion about rescinding approval of the treasurer’s and delaying approval of the budget amendment. Honkomp again indicated that the ARPA funds were showing in different places. Unrau stated, “We are probably not seeing something right.” Kruse also during the discussion of the budget amendment pointed out forms with and without Fritz’ signature “for legalities.” She also stated that council could not approve both the amendment and the treasurer’s report.
Murphy saw, at some point, the engineer’s report payment was identified in the explanations on the amendment. More calculations provided a figure near the amount of the ARPA funds as council members recollected.
TCA’s request to amend the 28E agreement so they could enter into a contract with Evertek was approved. Council also approved the IAMU Electric Line Maintenance program for the city employed lineman.
Discussion of the electric rate increase and/or issuing debt was had. Council considered the maintenance and upgrade requirements facing the utility as well as how often the utility is drawn on to fund various community projects. They also noted it had been a long time since rates were adjusted. Missouri River Electric Service proposed a 5% rate increase. The issue was tabled for more study.
A discussion about the Heeren’s selling their Busch lots before expiration of their deadline. The city has options. Council can allow Heerens to resell the property and the new buyers be held to the current contract (construction complete by August 2022). Council can also choose to approve a series of resolutions to buy back the lots before the deadline to build and resell the land back to new buyers and issue a new contract. Jones motioned to allow the Heerens to sell the property privately as long as the buyers agreed to sign a contract with the city establishing a timeline to build on the 2 lots.
Main Steet near Broadway has been dug up a couple times in recent months to clear the drain line that accepts waste water from properties in the 100 block of North Main. The line is a connector. It accepts the waste from the properties and connects to the publicly owned main. The connector is owned by the properties that connect to it from the building. The question came to the council if the street repairs needed right now need to be replaced with concrete or can be just blacktop. Council discussed the matter and compared it to other similar projects in a recent time period. They decided concrete replacement is necessary according to existing city ordinances.
This meeting can be seen at YouTube.com:belltimescourier.
The council held a closed session meeting on Tuesday May 17, 2022. In open session council voted to terminate the employment of Sandy Fritz only giving the reason she did not follow city employment rules.
Another special meeting was held Tuesday May 26, 2022 to decide if an unemployment claim would be protested and to post available jobs. They also discussed what jobs the council would fill.
Council voted to not protest the unemployment claim. They also decided to immediately post the City Clerk position and follow that up later with an advertisement for a city administrator. Council believes they can reduce the clerk position cost and take some of the tasks performed by Fritz and give them to an administrator. The discussed HR duties, superintendent duties and other tasks referring back to how things were done, “when Chapman was here.”