Speaker numbers apply only to this recording. Names come from transcript evidence. “Possibly” marks uncertain attribution.
The Laurel City Council met Tuesday, August 25, 2026, at 6:30 PM in Council Chambers, with Mayor Kris R. Vogele presiding and all eight council members present (Sara Naylor, Jessica Banks, Irv Wilke, Jodi Mackay, Richard Klose, Casey Wheeler, Brent Edgmond, Tom Canape). The meeting was adjourned at 8:06 PM. The Council adopted the FY 2026-2027 budget and related tax levies, adopted an annexation moratorium, approved multiple assessment resolutions and interlocal agreements, and voted to table a managed network services agreement for two weeks.
Note: The official minutes list the motion maker for R26-66 as "None," whereas the transcript identifies Council Vice President Klose; the resolution passed 8-0.
Welcome to the uh City Laurel City Council meeting for Tuesday, August 25th, 2026. By your presence in the city council chambers, you're participating in the process of representative government. To encourage that participation, the city council has identified has specified times for citizen comments on its agenda. Once following the consent agenda, at a time which citizens may address the council concerning any brief community announcement not to exceed one minute in duration for any speaker, and again following items removed from the consent agenda at which time citizens may address the council on any matter of city business that is not on tonight's agenda. Each speaker will be limited to three minutes unless the time limit is extended by the mayor with the consent of the council. Citizens may also comment on any item removed from the consent agenda prior to council action, with each speaker limited to three minutes unless the time limit is extended by the mayor with the consent of the council. If a citizen would like to comment on an agenda item, we ask that you wait until the agenda item is presented to the council by the mayor and the public is asked to comment by the mayor. Any person who has any question concerning any agenda item may call the city clerk treasurer's office to make an inquiry concerning the nature of the item described on the agenda? Your city government welcomes your interests and hopes you will attend the Laurel City Council meetings often. Please join me for the pledge of allegiance. Is there any public comment on the minutes? Do any council members have a disclosure of conflict or ex parte communications? Can I have a motion? Mr. Mayor, I would like to approval of minutes from August 11th, 2026, please. All opposed. We're gonna enter into the public hearing for fiscal year 2025-26 budget amendments. This is the time and place set for public hearing on the city of Laurel's ordinance, fiscal year 25-26 budget amendments. I'm opening the public hearing and first ask staff to present the item prior to hearing public comments. These are the budget amendments to close out fiscal year 25-26. The first one is to amend the revenues brought in by the FEQ or federal equitable sharing. Um we due to their regulations, we cannot budget any revenues or any expenditures, so this does appear every year as a budget amendment. Um there was no appropriations to the FEQ this year, and so the only thing we have is increasing the um revenues for the fire department. We um increased appropriations due to donations and for the DNRC grant that was received from the for the fire department for the wildland clothing. Um and so we increased the appropriations, and we also increased the revenues to um onset what was in the budget so that we did not overspend um those lines. And then the third one is just the airport authority. That is a pass-through mill that we receive, and due to the um possibly late taxpayers or something like that, or interest that was received, it went over by 114. So, in order to write the check for the the appropriation to pay the airport authority for the mills that we collected for them, we needed to increase the appropriation. That is okay. Copies of the rules governing the public hearing have been posted in council chambers. Are there any proponents? Are there any proponents that would like to speak? Any proponents? Seeing that are there any opponents? Are there any opponents? Are there any opponents? Since there is no further public comment, I will ask staff to respond to any relevant questions or issues that require an explanation or response. Any any other responses? No, okay. They don't have any questions.