I call this meeting to order.

Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Pledge of allegiance.

Okay.

Will the City Clerk please take attendance of for the City Council?

All council members are present, Mr.

Mayor.

We have three county commissioners present.

County Commissioners Hustler and Post are absent.

Thank you.

Um action to approve the agenda.

Entertain a motion from the city council to approve the agenda.

So moved.

Larry.

Motion from the county commission for approve the agenda.

So moved.

Second.

Motion and second.

All right.

Are there any comments from the public?

Comments from City Council or County Commission?

Well, that's when we get to the item.

Okay.

Will the city clerk please call the roll for the city council?

Avery.

Aye.

Doran.

Aye.

Hager.

Aye.

Neymar.

Aye.

Specker.

Aye.

Tilton Byrne.

Aye.

Wendell.

Aye.

Will the county please call the roll?

Vanderwall.

Aye.

Miller.

Aye.

Jensen.

Aye.

Motion carries.

Okay.

Item four, the joint county, city county item.

Item 4A, public hearing and action on City of Brookings Ordinance 25-028 and Brookings County Commission ordinance 2525.

2025-05.

An ordinance to change the zoning within the joint jurisdiction area of the City of Brookings and Brookings County.

Northeast Quarter, Northeast Quarter, excluding H-1, and that part east and north of H1 in Section 14.

Township 109 range 50, also known as 216 2540 471st Avenue.

From a joint jurisdiction business, JJ dash B3 Heavy joint district to a joint jurisdiction industrial JJ I light district.

Thank you, uh Mayor and members of the council and county commission for being here tonight.

It's Austrian investments.

It does come to you with a unanimous uh recommendation for approval from both the city and county planning commissions, and with that I'd stand for any questions you may have.

Thank you, Mike.

Uh entertain a motion, City Council to approve ordinance 25-028.

So moved.

Entertain a motion from the county to approve.

Move to approve.

Second.

I opened a public hearing on this item.

Is there any public comment on this item?

Council, County Commission have comments?

Council Member Specker.

Yeah, I would just like to make a comment.

First, I appreciate that this rezoning is occurring, but I notice that in the commission meet or planning commission minutes, there was some concern about ever changing ordinances.

And I just want to say that I appreciate you guys changing this ordinance so that we can protect the public health of surrounding areas.

And there are reasons to sometime change ordinances.

Any other comments, questions from council or commission?

All right.

Please call the roll.

Doran.

Aye.

Hager.

Aye.

Neymar.

Aye.

Specker.

Aye.

Tilton Byrne.

Aye.

Wendell.

Aye.

Avery.

Will the county please call the rule?

Miller.

Vanderwall.

Jensen.

All right.

Motion carries.

Okay.

That concludes the business.

Item five is entertain a motion for the city council to adjourn.

The joint city council and county commission portion of this meeting.

So moved.

Second.

Second.

I entertain a motion with county commission to join the joint city county, city council and county commission meeting.

So moved.

Second.

And motion of second.

All those in favor and council say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Opposed.

Motion passes.

All those in favor respond by saying aye.

Aye.

Same sign.

Motion carried.

All right.

Thank you, gentlemen.

Thank you.

We have a brief recess until uh our regular meeting starts at six o'clock.

Ready to go.

Okay, 541.

Um item six, budget workshop number two.

Item four is budget workshop number two.

We will be reviewing the 10 year CIP and fee schedule changes.

Samantha Beckman, our assistant to the city manager, will present this item.

Ashley Rensch will be our finance director is right behind for support.

There you go.

All right, we're just gonna kick off today then.

We've got the um CIP and the fee schedule, like the mayor said.

Uh tonight is the second budget workshop.

We also have one tentatively scheduled for October 14th as an optional date.

So I'll look to you guys at the end of the presentation for direction on whether or not you guys want that October 14th recap and discussion.

Uh this slide is just noting our formal adoption process starting in August with our property tax levy ordinance first reading, and then going all the way through November 18th, where we'll have our budget ordinances read off there in our tenure CIP fee schedule adoption as well.

On tonight's agenda, we'll be going over our CIP getting a little bit in depth onto our different revenue sources and expenditures through the CIP process, going over some budget details for each department, and then looking at our 10-year outlook, and then I'm gonna throw it over to Ashley to go over our consolidated fee schedule and then we'll leave time for questions at the end.

But feel free to ask questions throughout too.

All right.

Again, this is a lot on this slide, but this is from the last presentation where we went over the um the operating schedule here, and we have the total budget next year going down six hundred and fifty thousand dollars in total.

However, we are seeing a three percent sales tax growth, five percent property tax growth, and a million dollar general fund increase.

So, like we talked about last time, there's different funds that we look at.

Our general fund is your main operating fund.

However, in general, the budget will be decreasing next year.

And again, that's uh due to a lot of those one-time projects that won't be happening in 2026.

We will continue our investments in employees through our wages and professional development and training.

And as always, we have our intuitive and sustainable budget that was being created through this budget process.

Um, and really again credit to Ashley and Tyler in our finance department who helped create this budget too.

So our CIP, our capital improvement plan.

These are some of our major highlights here.

You'll see in the upcoming slides what our revenue and the expenditures look like in total.

But overall, we've got mostly our maintenance and replacement budget is our CIP.

Anything over $25,000 really gets put into our CIP schedule.

So $4.5 million for street projects.

That includes your annual overlay and chip ceiling, slurry ceiling in there.

Our outside agency payments to the SDSU PAC and the Brookings Health System at a million dollars.

And those will drop off.

Those payments will drop off after 2027.

We have fire engine three being replaced at $700,000.

The addition of the Fifth Street Gym accounts for $450,000 in capital improvements to the facility in 2026, with a total of about a $1.5 million going into that building over the next five or six years.

That accounts for about three vehicles in there.

So we do have a balanced CIP budget over the next 10 years.

And then our current debt will be repaid in 2020 or 2033, excuse me.

And we will talk about more in the upcoming slides on that.

So where are we getting our revenue for our CIP?

Most of our revenue for our CAP comes from our second penny sales tax.

So the city collects the 2% sales tax.

The first penny goes to the general fund, and the other penny goes to the CIP.

We also have some contributed capital in there that shows the amount of reserves being used to balance the budget.

We're budgeting a 2% interest rate for our money market accounts, so we only budget those annually to remain fiscally conservative.

And then we've got about $150,000 of other revenue.

So you know where we're getting the money, where are we spending it, right?

Capital expenditures is our largest portion of this.

This really just means that we are spending them on large projects.

We've got our bond payments going to the Bob Sheldon renovations and the Larson Ice Center.

And then we've got about a million dollars in transfers out.

Those go to fund the Dakota Bank Center, the golf course, airport improvements, as well as public art.

Excuse me, Sam.

Yep.

The bond payments, are we almost to the point where we're done with that one?

Yes.

Is it 2733?

Yeah, 2033, yeah.

Okay.

All right.

That's a 10-year plan then, right?

Because we've been, yeah.

It's been because we did Bob Sheldon in 2020.

Yeah.

Yep.

Okay.

So our capital expenditures and transfers.

Um, so you'll see that capital expenditures over here, and then the transfers section.

This is what we're going to be talking about on this slide.

Um, in the in this in general, public works, parks, recreation and forestry, and our public safety all account for 77% of our total 2026 expenditures.

So our public works department, uh, your expenses are driven mostly by street maintenance and equipment replacement.

Parks recreation and forestry, uh, mostly driven by the Fifth Street Gym improvements, Hillcrest Aquatic Center filter system, and HVAC control updates at the Larson Ice Center.

The public safety portion is driven by vehicle replacements as well as that fire engine three replacement.

And then in the other category is building and IT projects.

So we'll jump into each of those departments now.

And the public works side, again, like I said, street maintenance is your your big target here.

You've got your overlay, your chip ceiling, your slurry ceiling in there.

Um, and then those really go towards helping preserve the life of your roads.

Uh I wanted to also point out down at the bottom, your airport.

Um, this is the city's portion of a new snow building, and that project is contingent upon receiving another grant.

And then there's various equipment and vehicle replacements over here as well.

Parks recreation and forestry.

Your main driver here is your fifth street gym edition.

So we're budgeting $450,000 for 2026.

And again, about a million and a half dollars over the next five or six years.

And at the Larson Ice Center, there's some HVAC updates that were identified by the facility condition analysis.

And replacing a skid steer and mower that are at the end of their useful life as well.

Continuing on with Parks Mark, and we also add the library in here.

The library's got a new tile floor coming.

We're going to be contributing funds to the bike master plan implementation as well as the trail maintenance and repair fund.

And through the Dakota Bank Center, I want to point out this $470,000.

About $200,000 is going to event and operation equipment updates.

About $125,000 for exterior storage and access drive.

And then the rest is really audio visual IT upgrades as well as like a water heater and stuff are in there too.

At the golf course, where you've got the mower and equipment replacement as well as some strategic plan improvements out there.

Your public art contribution is a formula-driven number.

So that's 1% of all eligible capital expenses will go towards public art.

And then just wanted to note on this slide as well that we will be continuing the tree planting program in 2026.

And we do still have vouchers available as of right now.

If anybody wants to go plant a tree this fall.

Yeah.

And we can certainly bring that forward at an upcoming presentation too.

All right.

Public safety.

So this is your police and your fire departments listed as public safety.

Mostly in here, you've got vehicle and equipment updates that are at the end of their useful life.

Patrol vehicles, as I noted in one of the prior slides, $330,000.

That gets you about three vehicles to fully buy and then outfit those vehicles with all the equipment that they need.

An E911 console for the dispatch system is also listed on here.

And your fire engine three replacement over on the fire department side, as well as a lot of upgrading of the fire safety equipment on that side as well.

In your other capital expenses, you've got the research and technology center is planned for demolition in the fall of 2026.

We will continue to fund the sinking fund to mitigate against large unexpected repairs for vehicles, facilities, anything that's kind of a large, unexpected thing over there.

And we cap the sinking fund at $1 million and will be contributing at a rate that's greater than we're expending right now, which is really great to see.

The police department IT listed right there, that's an expense for our axon body camera hardware and squad car computer replacements.

And so you'll notice that on this prior slide, we've got the axon fleet.

That's the software for the body cameras, and then this is the hardware for the body cameras.

And then over on the transfers outside, the city county building, um we noted as Citco, City County Government Center.

The city uh portion for IT improvements, security cameras, and server batteries is 48%, and the county will be responsible for 52% of that.

All right, looking ahead, what's the next several years look like?

Um, large projects that we've got are uh fire platform truck that will be financed over five years.

We've also got a fire engine replacement that will be financed over three years.

Uh the Fifth Street Gym improvements, again, we've got about 450,000 this year.

We'll fund the rest of that about a million dollars in the next several years.

And overall, with the CIP, the the goal here is to continue to prioritize maintenance and replacement of our existing assets before we would be adding anything new.

So again, if we need to make those large street improvements, we want to do that before we start adding more streets in.

Um then looking at our tenure outlook here, there's a lot on this slide, so I'm gonna break it down here.

Your 2026 is what you're gonna be looking at.

You can see each of the departments, so you can see the total public safety, total person rec, total streets and airport, all those things that we just talked about listed on there.

And in 2027, um you'll see the outside agencies, so the health system and the SDCU PAC payments falling off after 2027.

Over in the 2033 column, you'll see the cities cities in a great position on our debt usage and our debt will be expiring after 2033.

So those are those bond payments that you're talking about, Mayor.

And in 2034, you'll see that go down to zero.

And 2035, so this is at the end of our 10-year outlook.

We've got about $600,000 in surplus, which would currently fall under the City Council Financial Priority Projects Fund, which we'll talk about in the next slide.

All right, so if you have an extra $600,000 at the end of 10 years, what would you be putting it towards?

Um, right now your current first priority projects are the fire station and the police facility.

And your second-tier priority projects would be the activity center and the library.

So we've got about 18, almost 18 and a half million dollars saved currently for those first priority projects right now.

So we will be seeing a little bit of uh a need for additional revenue sources to finish off the police facility.

But overall, you've been able to really save up those monies, which really then contributes to our quality of life and not raising property taxes to be able to do some of these facility updates, which is really great to see.

And then Sam, I have a question.

So I know that the fire facility and police facility have been on our list for a while.

On these numbers of the um four and the nineteen, when was that last updated, I guess?

Because we know that rising costs and projects can evolve too.

Is this a more recent number when it maybe was originally put on our priority list?

I believe that we had $17 million listed on there as of two years ago, and we've since upped the police facility to $19,000 or $19 million, excuse me, to um recently to account for we know that it's gonna be um more than $17 million at this point.

However, we don't have some of those designs in hand at this current moment to be able to know exactly what that's gonna cost.

Um I know the fire facility is um doing their open house this weekend, so they're a little bit farther along in the process for that.

So we'll know maybe a little bit more when the fire facility numbers come in, possibly what the police would look like at that point too.

Sure.

Thank you.

Any other questions for me before I hand it over to Ashley?

Okay.

All right, the consolidated fee schedule is comprised of our general fees, fines and violations, and the Edgebrook golf course rates.

We review these fees semi-annually and is needed to accomplish the objectives of comparability with peer communities, market trends, and cost recovery.

Some highlights for the 2026 fee schedule include um solid waste collections and landfills, seeing a uh 3% increase across the board.

Um refrigerators will now be the same price as air conditioners at $20 each based on processing time.

Mobile home disposal will now be at $500, going up from $26525 in line with regional pricing and processing time.

And storm drainage unit financial charge will be increasing by 3%.

Um we have an upcoming fee analysis plan for our airport fees, and then parks, rec and forestry also has a fee analysis in progress.

So those fees will be updated at a later time.

Um for planning and zoning, our signs will see an annual their annual $5 increase, and then flag and banner removal fees.

Um flags will be increased from $40 to $60 for removal, and then banners from $100 to $160 to account for staff time.

And finally, um zoning fees will be increased by $25 to $50 based on processing costs and billing permit fees will be increasing five to ten dollars per square foot.

That concludes our workshop number two.

And with that, we'll stand by for questions.

Thanks.

All right.

Thank you.

Councilmember Specker, you have a question.

Yeah, I don't know who would be the best to answer this, but I think it would be nice if the public sort of if you could give kind of an overview of how the capital improvement plans developed within each department and sort of the process and the timing, you know, how that happens because I mean it's a bigger process than what you show.

I mean, when you show this, it's the end product, and a lot has gone into that, and it might be helpful if people understood a little bit more of how it evolves.

Sure.

Yeah, I'll take a crack at it first, and Ashley can uh help fill in some details there.

So we really start this process of the budget in general about March.

March on our end.

Um and budgets then are due to the budget team by May.

By May.

And during that time frame, then each department head should be meeting with their supervisors and anybody else in their department that would make any financial decisions or any big projects that are coming up, they should be um on their radar.

You should have a probably a list of projects that you would want to fund in the next year.

And then at that point, meeting with your team to decide what's the highest priority within your department.

Um asking for those in your budget request, and then the budget team will evaluate those requests with you.

And this the CIP itself, we can kind of move large projects around to help us balance the CIP in the end.

So if there's one vehicle that could be pushed one year so that we can update two streets instead, we might do something like that too.

But we'll we'll talk with department heads and make sure that they're um understanding of that before we would make any adjustments.

Do you have anything else you'd like to add, Ashley?

That sounds great.

So in all, it's um a several months long process to do the budget presentation from two weeks ago and the CIP presentation tonight.

Um there's been a lot of a lot of work that's gone into it from anybody from your boots on the ground employee all the way up to us presenting it tonight.

Councilmember Duran.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um I had a question about you talked about how the majority of the budget with public works and public safety is kind of replacement of those vehicles.

Are we hitting the typical lifetime for those?

Or you talked about you know trying kind of triaging of can we push it a year or not?

Are any of them really overdue, or are we just hitting the typical lifetime?

I might ask John to come up and talk about that.

Sure.

Thanks.

Good evening, John Thompson Public Works.

Thanks for the question, Brianna.

Um for the roads side, is that what you're talking about for the road rehabs?

So what we do is we do a payment management system review every four three to four years or three to five years, and we look at the pavement conditions throughout the city, and that kind of gives us an idea of what we should be spending per year to keep that the condition of the road up to a drivable standard.

So we don't have all the projects laid out for every year going forward, but we look at that and then we review with our experts from the streets division that are always out there in engineering to see which roads should be the highest priority based on actually looking at the road and then looking looking at the PCI or pavement management condition reports.

Sure.

And and what about the yeah, and what about the vehicles that you were looking at replacing?

There are several.

So like the vehicles.

Um the vehicles we have a fleet, uh a full fleet study on on each vehicle.

So we look at the year, the useful life, how many hours is uh you we use it each year, and then how much the maintenance costs each year as we see the trend of the maintenance costs going up, then that's the time it's we're we're gonna plan on replacing that vehicle.

A lot of these vehicles, like some of the vehicles for streets.

Um, I think we just received two one of our dump trucks for our winter operations.

I think we placed that order two years ago almost.

So you have to be proactive on that, otherwise you'll get way behind very quickly.

Sure.

And then while I have you up here, because uh it's kind of a two-parter question for all the departments.

So I know with ambulances and fire trucks, they take a long time to actually get to the community after we purchase that.

Do you see that in your department too with the uh vehicles that you're purchasing?

Yes.

Ever since COVID came up, even before COVID, there were the supply chain was kind of lagging a little bit.

But we're we're finally starting to see a little bit of light on that, but still it's when we're replaced a heavy equipment piece of a piece of heavy equipment.

You can be looking at anywhere from 12 months to 24 to 36 months.

Just depends on where what type of equipment it is.

Sure.

So that's why you have to be even more proactive because we're still planning out to actually get to the community years in advance.

Correct.

Okay.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Yep.

Good evening, you all.

So great question.

Ours is a little different than DPW.

The way we design our replacement is prior to 2022, we were just willy-nilly replacing vehicles as it they came due.

There was still sort of a plan, but it was more of once one finally broke down, we just try to replace it as quick as we could.

And like John had just said, that can take months depending on labor unions and strikes and different things and parting and ordering and getting the pursuit performance and the police packages that we need to provide safety and our federally regulated.

So we were doing that.

So CPSM in 2022 advised us to do a fleet replacement program, which we instilled in 2022 when I arrived.

And what that does is it it analyzes the entire fleet, and we enter into a third-party agreement with replacements, so they buy the vehicles back.

So it's kind of a two-fold.

One, it's when a vehicle gets to its end of the road and we don't owe any, we'll try to sell it and recoup money or trade it in and then buy new from this third-party consulting.

Or when that vehicle gets to its three to five year mark, depending on how often it's used and the miles, then we'll be able to trade those vehicles in, which reduce, believe it or not, that price you're seeing of about a hundred thousand dollars, and we try to keep each vehicle replaced over a three to five year period due to usage, mileage, and then just the wear and tear on it.

We even went one step further and made sure that we assigned out all the vehicles to different officers so that the same three or four or five cars are not being hot seated and used 24-7, so that there's a rotation built into it.

And what you're seeing is before where we might have replaced five or seven or eight vehicles at once, and then none the next year, where we're replacing approximately three vehicles every year by trade in and then reducing some of that cost to the taxpayer.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Yes, ma'am.

Any other questions?

Councilmember Duran.

I have one more question.

Thanks.

Um whoever would like to answer this.

Uh Sam, you had mentioned one of the projects you were looking at outside funding through a grant.

Are any of the other projects are you looking at grants?

Are they contingent on outside funding, or what does that look like?

Yeah, I think we always are on the lookout for grants.

I know I just sent Chief Drake two grant options today.

Um the airport one is the only one that's contingent upon it at this point, but we're always willing to find extra money.

That's always great, because then we can just slide in an extra project if we can do that.

Sure.

Has it been relatively easy to find grant opportunities, or what does that look like in your world right now?

Um I think it's maybe a little bit harder at this point to find grants than maybe previous years, but I would say that it's as abnormal as you might expect.

Sure.

Thank you.

That's that's what I was expecting as well, but just wanted to know.

Councilmember Avery.

I didn't have a question, but I did have a comment.

I don't in all of our budget presentations, we've seen the CIP.

And the one thing we keep seeing is that darn fifth street gym.

And it's costing us all this money, and it's you know, and it's just a budget buster.

But I would want to point out that we did acquire that property in the heart of the city in a key location, uh, has a lot of had a lot of public support.

We essentially got the property for zero dollars from as a transfer from the school district.

And uh there's gonna be improvements made to it, but we're probably improving it above and beyond what it was originally built as.

So we'll have a very high quality building and uh with many uses and used by a lot of people.

So I I'm not feeling bad about doing that.

You know, I think we we all got a lot of uh uh when we were uh contemplating doing that.

We had a lot of support from the public, and I think it's gonna be used for a long time to come.

So investing a little bit of money in it now is is probably a money well spent.

So I would agree with Wayne on that.

And just so everybody knows it costs less than a million dollars to build that building a while ago.

Was it built?

What, 92?

I want to say it was in 92 it was built.

But anyway, yeah, it was 990 some thousand dollars to build that building, and we're gonna spend 1.6 to bring it back up to us its original state and improve it because we're doing uh this year we're gonna do things like uh get the bathrooms up to handicap accessibility.

Uh we're working on the Fiscade facade, right?

Um then we are going to do uh main entrance improvements, the north sidewalk replacement, and fill the long jump pit, add a sprinkler system, exterior handrails, and uh fire alarms.

Okay.

That gets us up to where we're gonna safe, make the building safe.

So any other questions, comments?

Thank you very much.

Nice job.

Okay, item seven, open forum.

In order to provide equal access to all during the open forum and public comment portions of the meeting, each individual offering comments shall not exceed the allotted three-minute period.

The podium might turn green to yellow where there is one minute remaining.

Your time of comment has expired when the podium might turn red.

Is there any member of the public wishes to address the council on an item that's not listed on tonight's agenda?

All right, we'll move on.

Consent agenda.

Action on the consent agenda.

Are there any items to be removed from the consent agenda?

Seeing none, entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda.

So moved.

Is there any public comment on this item?

Council questions, comments?

Please call the roll.

Hager, aye.

Neemier.

Aye.

Specker.

Aye.

Tilton Byrne.

Aye.

Wendell?

Aye.

Avery?

Hi.

Doran.

Aye.

Motion passes.

We'll move on to presentations and reports.

First thing is proclamation.

I don't know who's coming up.

I had Charlie on the list here.

If there's others coming, please come up.

Okay.

Merrill Proclamation.

Whereas stormwater runoff in Brookings impacts water quality and flooding in the Big Sioux River watershed.

And whereas public or population growth, residential and commercial development, and the resulting changes to the landscape will only increase stormwater quality and quantity concerns in South Dakota.

And whereas these impacts cannot be entirely avoided or eliminated, but can be minimized.

And whereas it is currently recognized that control of stormwater quantity and quality is most effectively implemented when people and organizations understand the related causes and consequences of polluted stormwater runoff and flooding and the actions that they can take to control these.

And whereas Stormwater Awareness Week is an opportunity for local governments, businesses, and environmental groups to highlight the importance of preventing stormwater pollution and managing stormwater runoff to our rivers, lakes, streams, and our neighbors.

Now therefore I opke Garrett Neemeyer, mayor of the City of Brookings do hereby proclaim the week of September 22nd through the 26th as stormwater awareness week and urge all residents and businesses and visitors to participate in responsible stormwater choices to protect our water bodies.

John I guess since I'm up since I'm up here, I'm going to say a couple of words.

Good evening.

My name is John Thompson with Public Works.

Thank you, Mayor, City Council, for this proclamation.

As we kick off Stormwater Awareness Week.

This week is about recognizing something that we often take for granted: stormwater and the systems, people, and practices that help manage it.

When it can when it rains, that water doesn't just simply disappear.

It flows over our roads, rooftops, landscapes, picking up pollutants along the way before entering our rivers, lakes, and groundwater.

That's why stormwater management is so important.

It's not just about preventing flooding, it's about protecting water quality, public health, and our environment.

Throughout the week, we will be sharing educational content on social media to raise awareness, including the message only rain down the drain.

So I urge anyone listening tonight to take a moment and follow the City of Brookings on Facebook or visit us on the web to learn more about what the city is doing and what you can do as a member of the community to support only rain down the drain and efforts to mitigate localized flooding.

I'd also like to take a moment to recognize some of the team members who help design, inspect and manage our stormwater systems and promote public education around this important work.

From public works, we have city engineer Charlie Richard, also assistant city engineer, Thad Dreets, and Sean Durhamus, engineering tech.

And then from our PO PIO side, we have Jessica and Shuri, who's behind the camera right now.

These are just a few of the dedicated staff that work behind the scenes every day to keep our systems running and our community protected.

This work is often unseen, but it's ultimately absolutely essential.

So thank you to them and to the rest of the teams in public works and parks and recreation for your commitment to managing stormwater for our city of Brookings.

That's it.

Thanks.

Okay, next on the on the uh presentations and reports, we have Anna Hunt from SDSU Student Association.

Give us an update.

Hi.

This Sunday I attended the Student Federation meeting with Vice President Syrah.

We discussed what's just happening in all of the schools around the Board of Regents.

They also announced Shed Day, which will happen on January 25th and 26th of next year.

It's students for higher education day at Cap at the Capitol, so we'll get to meet a lot of legislators, lobby potentially on just specific bills that are coming out.

And then next week, the Board of Regents will be meeting on October 1st in Spearfish.

Vice President Sierra will be attending via Teams because that is a pretty long drive.

Um about the student promotion fund for the estimated economic impact for this year.

Um it will not be finalized until December, but the estimated economic impact is about 2.8 million, um, which means that for every dollar we funded through the student promotion fund, $61 came back to the city as economic benefits there.

We do have a pretty busy weekend here on campus.

Uh we have senior day along with a football game and family weekend.

There's also a Hall of Fame induction at the football game this weekend.

And then Hobo Day is also coming up, which is October 11th.

End of report.

Thank you, Anna.

Any questions for Anna?

Thank you very much.

Charlie Kuhn, our landfill director will uh take care of this.

All right.

Um, yeah, so thank you for having me.

Uh, I'm going to talk about a pretty exciting opportunity that we're going to be kind of implementing for this next year.

We're going to be doing a food waste composting program throughout the city.

Um Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

They are doing it as a feasibility study.

So that means they are looking at existing infrastructure, public interest, uh, and see what else they can do to kind of support the needs of the community.

At the end of this, this will help kind of form statewide composting policies, um, different permitting requirements and like uh funding strategies and stuff like that.

Uh, why food why compost food waste?

Um sorry.

So for landfill, it's it's for airspace.

Air fate airspace is the life blood, the lifeblood of any landfill.

Uh keeping food waste out of landfills can extend the life of our landfill for many uh many years.

Uh it'll enhance soil, it increases the nutrient content, helps reduce pest and disease, and improves the soil structure.

And then it helps it also helps protect our climate.

Food scraps in the landfills produce methane, uh, which is 21 times greater than um carbon carbon dioxide in terms of a warming potential for global warming issues.

Uh what the program will entail.

Um, you will be we will be asking residents to collect their food scraps at their homes, um, bringing them to drop off sites throughout the city.

We're gonna have four different drop-off sites.

There'll be one at the street department, one at the east fire station, one at the south fire station, and then one out at the landfill as well.

And these will just be they'll be gray 95 gallon um containers similar to what you have at your homes for like recycling and garbage and stuff like that.

Um we will be having uh some promotional buckets that will be um available for residents to pick up.

We'll be actually giving them away at a farmer's market on the 4th of October and the 18th of October.

Um otherwise, if you don't get them there, you are you are able to purchase them out of the landfill office.

And they'll have information on them about what goes in the bins, what cannot go in the bins, um different things like that.

Um yeah, we're gonna be collecting them on a weekly basis.

We'll be bringing them back to the citizens' campus where they're gonna be kept in a separate area where we can uh track the loads coming in, mix the compost, test it.

Uh we look for moisture, we look for temperature, different things like that.

So there'll be a lot more stuff on the operational end that our staff will take care of um while uh maintaining all these records kind of throughout the entire process.

Um why do we do this?

Essentially, it's what we do is bigger than us.

It just promotes the environmental stewardship, community engagement, um, and a practical and collaborative approach to waste management.

So uh we'll be doing this for a year.

We're gonna be running it from uh mid-October of 2025 through about the same time in 2026.

Like I said, we'll be picking it up on a weekly basis.

Um there'll be compost bags at each collection site.

So those will be giving away for free to the residents, so you at least have something to put your waste in.

So there'll be stands at each site.

So when you dispose of your scraps, you can grab another one and take home with you.

So that's kind of all I have.

I know those a lot very quickly, so any questions for me?

Um I'm gonna start with my questions first.

I had well, I've got them in my mind yet.

Uh Charlie, you were talking about uh um bags that are gonna uh composting bags.

Are they gonna be a plastic?

Yeah, so it's a it's a plastic material that just can go right into the into the bin with the food scraps.

Okay, and they break down incredibly quickly.

Will this bag be big enough that you could line the five-gallon bucket with it?

Of two-gallon bucket.

So we put that plastic bag in that?

Yep.

So they're there are two and a half gallon bag made to go in the two-gallon bucket.

Um that the ones will be dispersing to residents, but you can obviously get your own as well.

And it's a two-gallon bucket that'll fit in.

Drop off sites, how many sites are you thinking throughout the city?

Four.

So there'll be street department, uh, the east fire station, the south south fire station, and then out at the landfill as well.

Okay, all right.

Um start with Councilmember Wendell, who's on the end.

Thank you, Mayor.

Charlie, do you know how many cities in the state are participating in this pilot effort with the department?

Say that again, sorry.

Do you know how many cities in the state are participating with the pilot effort?

Uh we're the only one so far.

So we are the first, we're gonna be the first municipality in the state to kind of start a food waste composting program.

Your communication with the department, did they indicate, you know, were there reasons that they selected Brookings or elements of your division that made them think we would be a good pilot?

Um so I before I started, the city had looked into it, um, starting the food waste composting, and the state basically remembered that and just knew it was something that our community had looked into pretty in-depth at one time and thought that we would just be open to uh kind of starting it up again.

Thanks to you and your staff for answering the call.

I I know it's gonna be a lift, but I think it's something that the community's interested in.

I know there's demand, and I'm excited to see where this year goes.

Yeah, no, I'm excited too.

And like at the end of the year, we're gonna kind of reevaluate everything to see if it's something that we can kind of implement on a permanent basis, or if we can expand it, or if we need to shrink it down, or just what that kind of looks like at the end of the yeah.

Councilmember Tilton Burton.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I am so excited about this.

Uh so uh about 10, 12 years ago, uh, prior to being on the council, I was on the sustainability council here in Brookings, and uh our group was actually the one that reached out to the state to ask about a lot of those um uh regulations and just tried to get something started at that time.

Um there were a lot of regulations at the state level that prevented us from being able to do this.

So to come 10, 12 years later and and see that they remembered those conversations that we had and and reached out to us to get something started, um, just I think is uh really exciting and kind of seeing this come full circle.

Um, and wanted to just thank you and and the team that's gonna be working on this.

Um you had mentioned that uh the the compost will be available at the citizens' campus.

Will that be similar to the yard waste where they can kind of pick that up and it can go into gardens, or will that be treated separately from the way the yard waste compost is?

So it'll be it'll be in the same area, but it will be separate from like the normal yard waste compost.

Um and we won't be doing anything with it in terms of uh handing it out uh to residents until it's completely done.

Because a lot of that's that end decision on what we do with it is gonna depend on how much we actually have.

Absolutely.

Um since it is gonna be, I mean, it is gonna be actually lab tested and um a little bit of a higher quality compost.

Um we just don't know exactly what that end that end kind of use is gonna be with it.

There's some stipulations with the state on what we can do with it as well and what we cannot do with it.

Absolutely.

Um so you had mentioned that it will be temperature checked, will it be heat treated or just temperature checked?

I mean heat treated if it calls for it.

So there's there's guidelines that if the if the temperature is above a certain amount, then we need to turn it and water it.

And if it's below, if it gets too low, then um there's steps we can take to kind of get that temperature up.

So um the state laid out kind of an entire operational plan on how we need to treat it.

Uh but yeah, any any kind of circumstance that comes up, we have to kind of address it accordingly.

Great.

And my last question is uh is there an ideal number of participants that you're hoping to get in the community, number of households that will participate?

Uh no, I don't really know how to quantify what right now, at least what like is successful.

Um yeah, I don't I don't have a good answer for that right now.

Well, you'll at least have one my household will will participate.

So thank you for this.

Um yeah, to touch on some of the state stuff again, they uh the regulations you had kind of talked about, those are all still actually in place.

They're just for the year they're waiting them.

So they're letting us kind of run this pilot program to see participation, and if this is something we do want to um kind of permanently implement within the community, we will have to go through all the regulations and create a more sustainable kind of pad out at the citizens' campus.

Well there'll be a lot more steps we have to take if this is, but for this year, they're waiving all those um permit amendments and stuff.

Councilmember Duran.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um I'll also reiterate my excitement for this initiative.

Uh I'll kind of take team off of Councilmember Tilton Burns question uh with the promotional buckets because it is a pilot program.

Is there a limited number of buckets that will be available or is it just whoever wants it?

You had mentioned a couple of things.

Yeah, so we're gonna be doing we're gonna be at the farmers market on the fourth and the eighteenth, and we will be um for those two days uh giving them to people if people are willing to essentially put their name and address down so we can kind of track how many at least buckets are out there to get somewhat of a gauge of how many people are participating.

Um but beyond that, like we're gonna be selling them, they'll be for purchase from our office, and there won't be a limit.

Um if we get low, we'll just we'll order more.

I mean, if there's if the demand is there, we'll keep buying them and kind of providing them for people.

Sure.

And what is that purchase price?

Uh it'll be ten dollars.

Okay.

Yep.

Thank you.

Yep.

And that basically just covers our cost of getting the bucket, getting the printing, getting the stickers and stuff like that.

Sure.

But you don't have to use them either.

You can, I mean, obviously you can use anything you want to put the food scraps in.

Thank you.

Any other council questions?

Councilmember Hager.

How many buckets are you initially purchasing?

I believe 250.

Yeah.

So in your program, where where have you where are you getting your information to start basing this whole program?

Whatever the state has provided for you, or I guess in terms of what information.

I mean, how do you even know where to start?

I guess the question.

Yeah, the program itself, we're we just kind of came up with it.

Okay, drop-off location idea, the um, I mean, working with people within our office, working with um Jessica and the public information office, like just we just kind of came up with it and we're gonna see how it works and um just be willing to kind of adjust on the fly if we need to.

Have you worked with SDSU at all on their food waste part?

No, we haven't really reached out to them.

That'll probably be a step if if this takes off on a community level, that'll be kind of one of those next steps we take to kind of bring in SDF.

So just just uh point of reference.

Colorado State University and Fort Collins, Colorado been doing this over for over a decade already.

It's been very beneficial for them.

I look at this way too, that it will help BMU also because we won't have food going down the our uh our drainage system too, and and filling up the solid waste that we have out at the land or at uh water treatment plant also.

So and obviously uh we're gonna gain some more space and in the landfill also if this actually takes off.

So it's a win-win.

Any other questions, comments?

Go ahead.

I wanted to add a little bit more to uh council member to uh Tilton Byrne Holly's um when we look at the I think you were talking about whether is it going to be pasteurized?

You know, ultimately, if this program is very successful, we would we would the intention would be to go back to the state and see if we can actually get a facility anaerobic facility to actually do the whole processing.

A lot of that's the way a lot of the starts.

I had food waste in California.

I think Charlie had it back in Wisconsin too.

So we have some history in there.

Unfortunately, California was mandated.

We are we are being proactive uh before any type of mandates come up, and which is always a better bet.

Uh but we're hopeful hopeful that as this as this evolves, we may be the first in the state to have a food waste anaerobic digestion system.

And at that point, then we need to figure out we we know where the feed stocks coming from, not only from residents, but also hopefully from restaurants and such.

And then it's where that post product goes to, because you have a lot of methane gases that are produced that you can turn in energy, and then you can also have very good composting.

But compost when it what we're gonna do in the pilot when it's just in a pile outside and it's gonna be turned, it's probably not gonna have a really great value, but it's gonna prove the point.

So as we go forward, hopefully the state will buy in it too.

It's like let's give Brookins some funding to see if we can get this done.

And I think that'll be that will be a kind of a cool little thing for the city of Brookings going forward.

That's all I had to say.

Sorry.

Well, thank you very much, gentlemen, for for uh starting this project up and having the uh the foresight to to give us a chance to to do something with our waste more than what we already are.

Yeah.

All right, thank you.

All right, thanks, Charlie.

Item 10A, action on resolution 25-080, a resolution awarding bids on 2025-03 SWR 20th Street South Shared Use Path Phase 2 project.

Charlie Richard, our city engineer will present this item.

Uh good evening, council.

As your city engineer, I'm here tonight requesting approval of resolution 25080 for the award of 2025 03 SWR 20th Street Shout Street South Shared Use Path Phase 2 Project.

This project will continue the the work already started on 20th Street South by replacing the existing sidewalk along the south side of 20th Street South from Branch Creek to 22nd Avenue with an eight-foot concrete shared use trail.

Bids for this project were opened on September 16th when we received four bids.

The lowest bidder is Timmins construction from Brookings with a low bid of 288,722.

This represents an approximate 28% um savings versus the engineer's estimate.

Sufficient appropriations exist in this year's fund 2013 capital projects and economic development funds for this project.

Public works recommends that Timmins construction be awarded the contract for this project.

Hey, Charlie, entertain a motion to approve.

So moved.

Second.

Be moved to second.

Is there any public comment on this item?

Council questions, comments?

Councilmember Hager.

I was just curious, is this project going to be able to get started here this fall or will it get pushed to the spring?

Our hope is that it would get started and finished this this fall.

So the same contractor who's doing the phase one portion of this project is has also got the contract for the phase two portion.

So they just plan to move right over and start phase two as soon as they're finished with phase one.

All right.

And Councilmember Tilton Byrne.

Um I just have a comment.

Uh, as my kids play soccer, I've been able to watch some of the progress on phase one of this, and it really is impactful the the size difference and what that path will look like.

Um, and uh as I watch them, you know, uh practice on the fields.

It is um there's a lot of traffic that goes up and down that path, uh, people running biking, and so to be able to widen it and make it much more usable.

I think, especially out in this particular area, really is gonna be a great benefit.

And so seeing the progress that's already happened on that first phase has been encouraging, and um to see that we'll be able to continue this further down the path is is really great.

So thank you for your work on this.

Okay.

Any other council questions, comments?

Please call the roll.

Neymar?

Aye.

Specker, aye.

Tilton Byrne, aye.

Wendell?

Aye.

Avery?

Aye.

Doran?

Aye.

Hager, aye.

All right.

On to first readings.

Item 11A, introduction and first reading.

An ordinance 25-032, an ordinance to rezone the west half of the northwest quarter, excluding platted areas in Section 20 Township 110, range 49 from agricultural district to an industrial light district.

Mike Struck, our community development director will present this item.

Thank you, Mayor.

And members of the council.

Uh ordinance 25-032 is an ordinance rezoning.

Uh the any Hanson property uh located up at uh intersection of 34th Avenue and Highway 14 bypass.

Uh this property was uh recently annexed into the city of Brookings, and when property comes in, it comes in with its existing zoning designation, and that was previously zoned egg.

Uh the owner of the property uh sees the opportunity for uh industrial development in this particular location of the community and would like to get the appropriate zoning in place uh for this 54-acre area.

This does come to you as uh unanimous recommendation from the planning commission, and I'd stand for any questions that you may have.

All right, thanks, Mike.

Is there any public questions, comments on this item?

Council have any comments or questions at this time.

All right, thanks, Mike.

All right, now we'll move on to item 12, second readings and public hearings.

Item 12A, public hearing in action on resolution 25-081, a resolution levying the assessment for concrete maintenance and project number 2024-09 STI.

Charlie Richter will present this item.

Uh good evening, Council again.

I'm here uh presenting resolution 25081, levying sidewalk assessments for sidewalk repaired by the city as part of the city's annual sidewalk program.

Every year the city inspects one-fifth of the sidewalks around town and notifies property owners of defects that need repair.

Property owners are given a choice to perform these repairs or have the city do them on their behalf and have the cost assessed back to them.

In February of last year, City Council approved a resolution of necessity to repair sidewalk tripping hazards throughout the city for the property owners who wanted the city to perform these repairs.

For repairs that are caused by boulevard trees, the city um accepts responsibility and pays for these repair costs.

For all other repairs performed by the city, the cost of these repairs are recessed by the city through this public hearing and onto their taxes.

Property owners are notified by mail the impending assessment and are provided the right to dispute these costs.

If property owners claim that they are unable to pay for these repair repairs, the city directs them to reach out to ICAP for assistance.

This assessment is for 31 locations throughout the city.

Public works recommends approval of this resolution.

Thank you, Charlie.

Entertain a motion to approve.

So moved.

Second.

Council questions, comments?

Councilmember Duran.

Thank you, Mayor.

I have a general question um about the project.

So uh I was just walking around last week on a tour and I had noticed a couple of sidewalks that maybe had some cracks in them.

And so when a public or even ourselves notice a trip hazard that we believe in a sidewalk, would it be best to uh like put a picture in engage brookings or just give you a call and see when it's going to be reviewed since only a fifth of sidewalks are reviewed each year, or what would that process look like if one of the public member public notices a potential trip hazard in the sidewalk?

Yeah, we recommend that you use engaged brookings, especially with a photo so we could identify the panel that's that's causing the issue.

Uh we identify and we require uh sidewalks that repair it if they prov provide a tripping hazard.

So ones that are cracked don't necessarily require a repair because they're not classified as a tripping hazard.

Um but yeah, we we we do encourage people to submit those through engaged brookings and so we can uh take a evaluate and and notify the property owner of the defect.

Sure.

And then to add on to that, if um like a tripping hazard is identified that maybe is not on the annual review, is there ever any instance where that is added on to the review uh ahead of time or it's repaired even though it wasn't reviewed that year?

If something was put in engaged brookings, do you address it pretty promptly?

Yeah, well, what we do is we'll uh evaluate it, determine if it needs to be repaired.

We notify the homeowner because we want to provide the homeowner or the property owner the opportunity to repair it on their own.

Um and then we go through the resolution process if uh they are they would like the city to to do that.

Um but we will pair that with the next round of resolution and necessities, unless it really poses a significant tripping hazard.

Sure.

Thank you.

All right.

Any other questions, comments?

Please call the roll.

Specker.

Aye.

Tilton Byrne, aye.

Wendell?

Aye.

Avery?

Aye.

Doran?

Aye.

Hager?

Aye.

Neymar.

Aye.

Item 12B, public hearing and action on a request to transfer an on-off sale malt lick license for 929 to 931 25th Avenue from Dennis Belt owner, Denwell Hospitality Group, Incorporated DBA Wilberts to S D N D L L C D BA Comfort Suites University, Domileese, Domileese Events, Dennis Biafeld, Timothy Swenson owners.

Bonnie Foster will present the rest of this item.

Mayor and Council members, items 12B, 12C, and 12D are all related.

This is coming to you as a request from the South Dakota Department of Revenue.

Um, all three of these licenses for this location on 25th Avenue must have the same sales tax license as that is a requirement of an establishment which qualifies for an on-sale convention liquor license.

So what we're doing is we are transferring all three of the alcohol licenses for this location.

So there's a on-sale malt, on-sale wine, and of course the on-sale convention liquor, which will be all transferred to the ownership of the SND LLC.

So in this item in front of you, 12B is for action on the transfer of the on-off malt license for this location.

Um if council so approves, this will be sent to the Department of Revenue for final review and license issuance.

Staff recommends approval.

Thank you, Bonnie.

Entertain a motion to approve.

So moved.

Second.

Open the public hearing on this item.

Is there any public comment on this item?

Okay.

Close the hearing.

Council con questions, comments.

Please call the roll.

Tilton Byrne.

Aye.

Wendell?

Aye.

Avery.

Aye.

Doran?

Aye.

Hager?

Aye.

Neymar?

Aye.

Specker.

Aye.

Okay.

On 12C, public hearing action on resolution 25-079.

Resolution authorizing the city manager enter into a 10-year on-sale wine operating agreement with S N D L L C D BA Comfort Suites University.

Domileese, Domeleese Events, Dennis Buffelton, Timothy Swenson owners.

Bonnie Foster will present this also.

Mayor and Council members, the city manager is authorized to enter into operating agreements for periods of 10 year.

There is a five-year midterm renewal.

If council so approves, this will allow the city manager to enter into that operating agreement with SND LLC for the reasons I stated prior.

Staff recommends approval.

So moved.

Second.

Open the public hearing on this item.

Is there any public comment?

Close the hearing.

Does council have questions, comments on this item?

Please call the roll.

Wendell?

Aye.

Avery?

Aye.

Doran?

Aye.

Hager?

Aye.

Neymar?

Aye.

Specker?

Aye.

Tilta Bird.

Aye.

12D.

Public hearing and action on resolution 25-082.

Resolution authorizing the city manager to enter into a 10-year on-sale convention liquor operating agreement with Ed S N D L L C D BA Comfort Suite University Domileese Dominic's events.

Owners Dennis Bierfeld and Timothy Swenson.

Bonnie Foster will also present this item.

Mayor and Council members, this item is similar to the last, only this is for the convention on sale liquor license.

This will we would enter into an agreement for 10 years with a five-year midterm renewal.

Your approval would authorize the city manager to enter into the set agreement for the reasons stated earlier.

Staff recommends approval.

Thank you, Bonnie.

Entertain a motion to approve.

So moved.

Open the public hearing on this item.

Is there any public comment on this item?

Close the hearing.

Comments on council?

Questions?

Please call the roll.

Avery.

Aye.

Doran?

Aye.

Hager.

Aye.

Neymar?

Aye.

Specker.

Aye.

Tilton Byrne.

Aye.

Wendell.

Aye.

Okay.

On to other business.

Item 13A, action on resolution 25-078.

A resolution authorizing the licensing of the flower shop LLC as a medical cannabis dispensary in the city of Brookings.

Bonnie Foster, our city clerk will present this item.

Mayor and Council members, this item is a transfer of an existing medical cannabis dispensary license for the existing flower shop located at the corner of Medir Avenue and 6th Street here in Brookings.

This location is being transferred to two to new ownership where the LLC will stay in place.

The name of the business will stay the same as well as the function of the business itself.

So as identified in city ordinance, the transfer of a medical cannabis license follows the same process as a new medical cannabis license.

So if the council so approves the transfer, this will be sent to the state cannabis office for final review and state license issuance.

Staff recommends approval.

One of the new owners, Joe Stavig, is here this evening.

If you have any questions for him.

Thank you, Bonnie.

Entertain a motion to approve.

So move to second.

Is there any public comment on this item?

Our new owner is who, sir?

Right here.

All right.

All right.

Any questions, comments from council?

Councilmember Tilton Byrne.

Um Bonnie, I don't know if this question would be for you or for um Mr.

Stavig, but uh I'm wondering if the transfer of the license will interrupt the service to any of the patients.

It should not.

Thank you.

When you transfer the license on this, I have a question.

The inventory that's there, is that part of the purchase for the transfer of the license or transfer of the business?

Okay.

And so there's an inventory of it so that the state knows what you have there for inventory, and then that's all documented.

All right.

Just a question.

I didn't wasn't looking for any dark corners or anything.

It's just on trying to understand that process.

Any other questions from council?

Please call the roll.

Doran.

Aye.

Hager.

Hi.

Nayer.

Aye.

Specker.

Aye.

Tilton Byrne.

Aye.

Wendell?

Aye.

Avery.

Aye.

Okay.

Now we have the highly anticipated City Brookings Progress Report that we get monthly.

And Samantha Beckman, our assistant city manager, will present that item.

All right, here we go.

The September Progress Report is as follows.

We've got two of our performance dashboards that have recently been updated by all city departments and our economic development partners.

I've listed those URLs on this web page here, but you can also find those by navigating to the city's website.

Lots of SDSU events like football games, and there was the Jocksbash 3.

Um Bobcat football games have started up again.

And the Breakfast with Badges is also back at Camelot Intermediate School and is held the second Tuesday of each month.

The Citizens First Responder Academy hosted their first session of 11, which kicked off on September 4th.

And several officers attended an in-service training that was put on by the state's attorney's office.

And then lastly, on here, a big congrats to Detective Sergeant Rhett Larson on his graduation from the FBI National Academy.

It's a really big feat, so if you see him, make sure to say congrats.

Staff also assisted the Sustainability Council with building a fence around the new community food forest to keep animals out of that area.

This is located just north of the community gardens.

And at the Hillcrest Aquatic Center, a new pool filter is being replaced.

We also have a new certified arborist, um, Caleb Schaller.

Passed his certification process recently, which is also really great.

So congratulate him if you see him as well.

And we still have those tree vouchers available.

So if you see him, you might ask his recommendation.

Um, not just attending, also presenting.

Our uh parks recreation forestry director, Kristen Zimmerman gave a presentation at that conference.

And um we also have seen really great um more study rates at the Berkings Activity Center for their participation growth.

And lastly, the park board and city council recently participated in a tour of our park system this month as well.

The fire department will be hosting a community open house on September 27th from 10 a.m.

to noon at the current downtown fire station as we work towards completing the initial design phase of the new station, which is being proposed directly to the west of the current station.

Our engineering division of public works had one project that wrapped up this month, the 12th Street South Shared Use Path Shared Use Path was completed.

And they've got several projects that are scheduled to be completed by the end of October.

Those include the asphalt maintenance project and the Arrowhead Park Trail and Drainage Improvement Project.

And to be completed by the end of the year, we're also hoping to wrap up that 32nd Avenue and Capitol Street Sanitary Sewer and Road Improvements that are happening out at the marketplace site near the new target in Aldi.

We also have in the engineering division that 20th Street South Shared Use Path that we heard about tonight.

And renovations of all four pairs of the arena restrooms are completed, and there's a nice before and after shot on this slide.

And hopping back to the Public Works Solid Waste Division, the Leech 8 Force Main project is still ongoing with total completion expected by mid-November.

Construction of the residential drop-off area is scheduled to be completed by October, and this area will serve as a place where small vehicles can drop off their waste without having to go up into the landfill itself.

They also have the new storage cart area that's completed.

This will house all of our garbage recycling and yard waste carts, which opens up space in our garages for other equipment.

And last but not least, the library hosted a fairy tale escape room over the last few weeks.

And I'm sad that I got the picture too late, but we had some of our staff go through that as well.

And there's a great photo if anybody wants to see it later on.

And we also had really great participation numbers in the summer reading program this year.

And I will take any questions if you've got any.

Thank you, Sam.

Any questions for Sam?

Councilmember Duran.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Sam, for this great presentation.

My question is actually for Kristen, if she wouldn't mind coming up.

The food forest is a really great new initiative that I got the honor to learn about when I was part of the parks tour, but I don't know if we've really publicly talked about it.

Maybe just kind of briefly mention it.

So I was wondering if you wouldn't mind giving just a quick overview about it.

Or Sam, could I just the uh recent city liaison for the Sustainability Council, so I'm just gonna give a little bit of an update and maybe Kristen can also fill in there too.

Um the Sustainability Council has been talking about creating a food forest for the entire time that I have been here, about two and a half years.

And the parks department has been a really great help specifically this year in helping get there was five trees that were initially planted just north of the the gardens on kind of the east side.

Um the fence is now currently complete.

Um the park staff did a great job with that.

Um kind of next steps then would be to infill some of those things.

There's some kind of like concepts for long-range planning out there, possibly adding some trails or something in that area.

Um, but at this point, I think we've got new signs that will be put up eventually, and I think they're planning on doing a ribbon cutting eventually for it.

Um the food forest is a great asset.

We're super excited about it because food scarcity is something that we're concerned about, of course, within our community.

Um if you haven't been by there right now, we have some apples that are growing.

We wanted to plant the fruit bearing trees first so that they were able to be established well in advance of some of the other shrubs and other stuff that may you may find there soon.

Um our staff did a great job building the fence.

That was just the first step or second step technically.

Um but yeah, it's a great space and potentially a great place for uh future food compost location.

Anyway, um but anyway, feel free to go out there.

I heard the apples are great.

Um there are quite a few, so get out there and pick.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And it's at the community gardens, correct?

That's where the public can find it.

Correct, yes.

Thank you.

Thank you both for your answer.

I appreciate it.

Any other questions, comments?

I'd like to do a second shout out for Officer Larson uh completing that uh program with the FBI training center.

Uh he also and his he and his wife were new parents while this whole process was going on.

And so uh just shout out for him.

He uh uh I think didn't come home for a while when the baby was born and went back out, finished up the program.

Correct, right, Chief.

Anyway, very proud of him.

Uh we should be very proud of our our police department and especially when they take the opportunity to uh improve their their skills.

Okay, uh next regular meeting, October 14th.

Uh we will also have uh at least one or two second readings in the budget workshop.

And first reading on uh on the uh rezoning of the West Half Platte.

We also have uh future topics uh that uh could be uh brought up.

Do council have any topics they would like to uh add to the agenda.

All right.

Everyone have a great evening.

Entertain a notion uh motion to adjourn.

So moved.

Second.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

We are adjourned.