Engineers for the 28th Street closed landfill ground groundwater corrective action implement implementation project.

I'm gonna add um Nicole on on 10 D.

Did you look at the contract?

The signature was being signed by the project director.

Is that an authorized signator?

Yes, normally for this company.

Okay, thanks.

E is a resolution awarding and approving a contract to Mark Albanicius for the 13th Street Storm Sewer Improvement Project.

F is a resolution approving a service provider agreement to electric pump for the pump removal repair and installation project.

So we have two pump projects, 10 B and 10 F.

Could those not have been bid together so that we maybe eliminated some of the mobilization costs?

Tom Pingle, Public Works Director.

Good question.

We wish we could have planned for this.

These pumps failed.

There was only five pumps down there, four of them are down.

And this is our largest lift station.

So uh we acted quickly.

We did not want to go to an emergency situation and possibly pay higher than we had to.

We we do rely on our equipment, and we think that the current equipment down there was capable of handling this for two to three weeks until this gets repaired.

Okay.

Thanks, Tom.

B is a resolution approving amendment number one to the renewal option number two of the service provider agreement with boiler room services for routine boiler room service maintenance at the wastewater treatment plan and lift stations.

11 are actions relating to property.

A is a resolution and biding proposals for the sale of the vacated east-west alley adjacent to 1213 Grand New Grandview Boulevard for the combined central Sioux City CBD Urban Renewal Area, announcing the intent to accept the proposal of Bishop Healing Catholic Schools and scheduling a hearing.

B is a resolution authorizing and approving an assignment and an assumption of the mutual easement agreement with Pierce Street Partners and Steel Martin Tower property at Four Street and Pierce Street.

I'm sure we probably are obligated to do this.

But are we?

Because now is the time to negotiate getting rid of our part of that building.

If we ever are going to have a chance, now is the time.

Marty Doherty, economic and community development.

I agree with you, Mayor, and we have talked to them about this.

They didn't show a lot of interest in the past, but we said we would revisit it with the buyers.

Once they get this assignment, they have no reason to negotiate.

They have a reason to negotiate now.

Yeah.

The assignment and and Nicole and I worked on this assignment is the I mean the easement, the assignment of the easement is exactly the same easement that has existed in the past.

What if there is no easement?

The time to get out of this piece of property that we should have never gotten into is today.

And if you if you give them this assignment, they will never negotiate in good faith.

I will say that they have indicated that they believe this isn't necessary for the council to approve an assignment that one of their finance partners has requested.

So that is the reason that it's on the council agenda today.

Bob, what do you suggest?

What?

What do you suggest?

I'm suggesting that we withhold this until we negotiate.

We don't need it's a it's a long story, but back in the day I won't even name his name.

The finance director thought I'm gonna make all this money on these tax certificates.

So we bought them.

That's how we got stuck with this thing.

And it's never been defined who's responsible when it comes.

We always get stuck with half the bill, and we only own the basement.

And most of the water damage came from up above.

Tell me when I'm wrong.

Why would I want to be able to do that?

It goes back a long way, Mayor.

You're right.

The city owns the first floor in the basement.

Uh for years, Thorps was in there, and we kind of broke even on it, paid the paid the bill, the rent, paid for the bills, and so on.

But after they closed years ago, there's really, you know, there's no it was nothing in there, and we would like to sell it.

We knew that it was being purchased.

Uh that Lou Weinberg was selling it, and we've talked to the new owners, and as you know, Mayor, there was a a lot of issues with um work that had to be done inside the building, and that's all been completed.

And um we they indicated they would talk to us again about that, but we could try to sell it to someone else, of course.

But the easiest path would be to sell it to them.

I agree with that.

Yeah, I'd like to pull it.

And try to get something done.

I listen.

I'm not naive.

It's not my first rodeo.

We're gonna have to pay them a little bit to take the thing.

That's reality.

But your first loss is normally your best loss.

And we're never going to get a chance at getting rid of this again.

Never.

You don't have any reason to.

I'm going to move to defer.

Second.

Just for the council's benefit.

I believe they do have a closing date of Wednesday of this week.

But that isn't it doesn't impact what you have to do today.

And the lender may waive the requirement, is what you are also saying.

Correct.

The attorney that asked us to do that said indicated they believed it was self-affecting related to the underlying agreement, and they didn't need the council's permission.

That's what was represented to me.

But that's a discussion that we can also have.

On the two-week deferral, Bertrand?

What am I vote on?

The deferral to August 3rd.

Yes, sir.

Rayford.

Wait a minute, Roger.

Do you want to speak on this?

Oh, I'm so sorry.

I should wait.

Yeah, come on up, Roger.

Roger Caudron, 4921, Singing Hills Boulevard.

Uh uh speaking on behalf of both the seller and the buyer steel uh Martin Tower LLC.

Closing for this property is scheduled for Wednesday the 29th.

Closing moving the City Council action to another week would mean uh that the closing would have to get pushed into the middle of August at the earliest, uh, which will cause some problems for both the buyer and the seller.

Uh this is a situation similar to the city owning a property next door.

The only difference is this is vertically.

This is a separate property and um the uh close, Roger.

If I own one next door, I'm I'm responsible when they're tied together, it's different.

And the buyer is unable to uh buy it as a part of this package because of the financing that's got that is going into the property.

So I think the answer is going to be the same thing in a week from the buyer.

They are unable to purchase financing is all set for the proper project.

It's ready to go.

We're not asking for any money.

But the I think I can answer that by the fact that the applications for financing with Freddie Mac with the um uh the bank and with the tax credit financing are set based on the purchase of the property from Pierce Street partners.

And all likelihood, knowing the those programs as well as I do, we start over.

Well, is there a everything starts over?

You're the guy that just said it's a separate piece of property.

So it should not have been they can still go and buy that separate piece of property.

We're just asking them on the side to accept this as part of the project.

We're not asking for money, we're just at it out of this.

So I'm gonna pass it along what I'm I'm got uh Justin Unger with the the uh buyer on uh text here, and he said they cannot buy it now.

This is a quote, but could buy it down the line.

Can't happen as a part of this package because of the financing that goes into the financing package that's been put together.

But we're not selling it.

We're selling it for a dollar.

So it shouldn't affect it.

And I wish we would have well, you're still selling it.

And if you're making one contingent upon the other, then you're in an urban renewal district.

That process for a dollar is 60 to 90 days down the path.

No.

Roger.

You they can come this week and say we'll take it, we just can't take it as part of the field.

We'll sign an LOU, and we know we won't get it for 60 or 90 days because it's a separate title, separate deed, separate everything.

Now they can do that, and you know they can.

No, they well, I don't believe they can I don't believe they can if it's gonna hold up if it's gonna be a contingency.

I don't think it's going to necessarily hold up that next.

Yeah.

Right.

We can bring it back next to the deal.

But it now is the time to discuss this.

Not listen, we've had a lot of promises, and you know that.

And every promise we ever got cost us more than it should have.

You all disagree, but I I have my opinion you're entitled to yourself.

Hold on a second here.

They cannot include it as a condo because of their impact on the tax credit deal, number one.

Number two, because it does not is not residential space, they would have to condo it out.

So it would change by creating a condo, that would change the legal description of the package.

Having to carve it out.

You bet.

Okay.

Now all of the financing is based on the existing legal description that is in place for all of the financing.

We start the financing over.

And we're not saying that they should do that.

We're saying they should continue with their deal that they have on floor two and up.

Yeah.

Make the deal, but in the interim, come to the city and sign that they're going to take the bottom two floors and a separate deal with us.

That's what we're asking.

We're not asking him to start over.

We're not asking him to marry the deals.

We're asking them to take that property as well.

I would say we've been working on this for well over a year.

That should have been worked out ahead of time.

It's not as though that the property is not a good thing.

This is kind of blackmailing them into a position.

No, it's not.

That you would have to purchase it.

It's not.

It's not blackmailing.

You've known that we have wanted to get this property sold together for more than a year.

Yeah.

When we are fixing and spending hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars doing water repair damage from floors up above.

We don't have any reason to own two floors of a building.

But we have all also known that this was moving forward on this contingent on this path.

And now to stop that.

Can they move their closing to a week from Wednesday rather than this Wednesday?

I think it's independent.

I don't think it matters.

I don't either.

Let's see, our the mortgage payment comes out on the sixth.

So the quickest that a um they have to determine what the mortgage balance is based on the payment being made for the current owner.

But they can do that on a day daily basis.

If we push it past August, past the end of August or the end of July.

There has to be a new payoff determined for the month of August.

And so then we get a period from basically August 11th, the uh mortgage company is telling us until the end of August as a window to do the closing.

So that basically pushes us to the middle of August.

But you did say they could move it to the 29th and it would keep it in July.

It is 29th is the scheduled closing.

So we can move this to the 27th.

We bring it back in a week rather than 27th.

Rather than two weeks.

Yep.

To the 27th, please.

One of the one of the other things from Justin is that um Freddie Mac does not mean the Freddie Mac financing does not permit condo arrangements within the ownership of the building.

Now, Roger, you got 42 different properties and they were all in different ownership.

I think a guy like him that bought a bunch of them should know how to do different ownership.

Not with the same legal description.

Block 15, Sioux City, Iowa.

So it's already condoed.

What are you talking about?

We have our own title for that.

So we would ask if you're going to push it off, push it off no later than next Monday, the 27th.

I've already done that.

And I'm getting a text from Justin on that issue today.

Issue now.

We've done all the other ones for these guys, so it's not like we're um these folks haven't purchased anything else from us.

No.

This is this is uh single all of the other properties or other properties are all in fact uh in separate locations, separate legal descriptions, separate names, separate LLCs.

They are independent, uh even if they were purchased by the same buyer.

So I'm on Westfort that we did some things like this for the release.

Yeah, but that that's not these folks.

Okay.

That's a different the Denver company altogether.

Okay.

So just a second.

Yep, because I changed the date.

Second.

Okay.

On the deferral to July 27th.

So one week.

Bertran?

Aye.

Rayford?

Aye.

Shayner.

Aye.

Scott?

Aye.

Bernstein.

Aye.

Okay, 12 are applications for cigarette tobacco, nicotine, vapor product permit.

13 are applications for alcohol licenses, 14 are board commission and committee minutes.

The end of the consent agenda.

Anyone want to be heard on any of those items?

Not call the roll.

Rayford.

Aye.

Shayner.

Aye.

Scott?

Aye.

Bernstein?

Aye.

Bertran.

Fifteen's hearing and resolution approving plans inspects for the Pearl Street and Railroad Surface Improvement Project.

I'll move that.

Second.

Public hearing is now open.

My fault for not asking this, but I remember we had to do a bunch of stuff like put bullyards or whatever you call them up.

What are they doing now?

Because they said they already did this, so it's a quiet zone.

So what are we doing now?

That they have to do more stuff down there.

Why is this being required?

Huh?

Yeah, why is it being required?

Gordon Fair, City Engineer.

This is just for some added added improvements there at Pearl Street.

It's got nothing to do with the other improvements down the street.

No, no.

We did Pearl Street.

You divided Pearl Street.

You put gates on Pearl Street.

You made us not be able to drive behind the Tyson because somebody was coming out the other way and a railroader got injured.

I mean it was a work comp thing, and they did all that.

So what are they doing now?

And that's actually there behind the Tyson.

There's just it's additional improvements there.

Behind Tyson.

What?

Um sidewalks and medians.

Um are going to be upgraded.

Who's doing the work?

Us?

Well, we get to pay for the minor contribution from railroad and most debts on us.

That's why I may I agree with the mayor.

I don't understand why we're doing the project.

What's the ultimate?

When we did this, this was supposed to solve the problem, so Pearl Street would be a quiet zone.

We spent $300 and some thousand dollars.

I can remember it.

It was because somebody went the wrong way out of the back of the Tyson, and some guy, railroad guy panicked and got injured.

So when did they I should have called you earlier, but this is another joke.

They pay nothing for it, but yet we have to do it.

Are they requiring this, Gordon?

Yes.

Well, they ought to mow their damn weeds in town then.

That's that's what they ought to do.

I'm voting no, so it doesn't matter.

What's what what's the latitude they have, Gordon, to require that we won't give you the quiet zone.

They'll blow the whistle.

But it's already a quiet zone.

But they'll take it away from you.

They have that right.

Correct.

What it is.

Hearings closed.

Shayner.

Aye.

Scott?

No.

Bernstein?

No.

Bertrand?

No.

Rayford.

No.

They've got to come with a better reason, Gordon.

It's ridiculous.

16 is an ordinance amending Title 10 of the municipal code and title traffic to increase the rate of charges for hourly, daily, monthly bulk parking in the municipal parking ramp and parking meters to increase the parking fines.

Can I ask that this item be deferred for at least one, if not two weeks, or whenever the parking and skywalk board gets back together?

I've had a couple calls.

I know that this was shared with them, but I don't know if they had an opportunity to fully review the scope of the requests on the increased fees as well as the penalties.

So is it a problem if I ask this for whatever time period you need to get this back to the to the board?

Absolutely.

Tiffany Claiborne Parking and Skywalk Division Manager.

Yeah, we can absolutely do that.

We meet again the third Wednesday of the month, but I could check to see if we could do a special meeting sooner than that.

I don't want to push you unless there's urgency on your part to get this reviewed.

If we can do this meeting this week.

We just met the case.

They just met last week.

We could certainly delete, and then we can just bring it back.

Okay, I'll move to delete this with the idea that before you move it though.

Can we just quickly have a little can we have dialogue a little bit on it while it's fresh in mind?

So is it Teresa or somebody walk with walk us through the plan that at the end we're still at 2.83 percent?

We're supposed to be at 15 or something like that.

Well, I didn't understand.

Do we have a motion and a second for discussion?

Oh, sorry.

So moved on a second room.

Oh yeah, I'll I'll I thought he moved.

I'll I'm sorry about the question.

I was missing a lot of the questions.

I was moving to defer this item.

What you're telling me is you don't want us to defer it, you want us to delete it.

If we move and delete it, then we can have discussion.

I would move the item to have discussion, and then then if there's a motion to delete, do that second.

It's because it's fresh in mind.

Right.

Move to have discussion.

Oh, second.

Thank you.

Sarah Swearing, budget manager.

Um when we were analyzing the fund, we were kind of trying to look at comparables of other um parking spaces as well as last time when we did the rate increase of ten dollars in 2022, we had an 18 percent decrease in parkers.

We were trying to find the balance of getting the fund positive without trying to push out uh too many parkers, um, which would actually end up detrimenting the fund more than the increase.

So what's the 20 percent that we're supposed to be at in five years?

Is it just is that uh is that binding or is that no, that's just an interesting.

That's our goal.

Our for revenues for the city.

Yeah.

But we have not been at that public.

Quite then why do we have it?

I apologize, those five dollars.

I'm sorry, I missed it.

It was a five dollar increase in 2022 out of 10.

And so if if we had that much you know, attrition, then do we think that raising it this high would cause even more?

Or what are we?

Well, I think that's why we were trying to find that balance of where the sweet spot is to try to keep people but realizing that.

I think part of the dialogue needs to be whether we ladder in an increase of fees over a period of time, what that does to the fund, and how you get to the point where you need to be in, say, four to five years.

And that's what I'd like the parking board to do.

Okay.

Just come back with the recommendation from you between maybe have smaller increases each year instead of one larger one, like we do the trash.

Provide the diet provide the data.

Well, what what increase gets this to your 15-20 percent?

I'd like to see that.

Get us that hard number.

Like 10 or 12 bucks or whatever, just say this is the number we optimally would buy.

Okay.

Kind of, you know, it's I don't understand what I meant.

Thank you.

Which a $15.

We'll also can I ask that when you bring this back, can you separate the request for the fee increase and the fine increases as separate items just in case there's a discrepancy between the two?

Sure.

In terms of support?

Thanks.

Thank you.

Calculate that by chance?

Yeah, it's a $15 increase would put us at $17.82 percent.

Versus what?

The $10.

So the five bucks get you to where you need to be?

Correct.

Solvent?

Correct.

That question.

Providing that don't lose parkers.

So you don't think you don't have any expression?

I think if we do it incrementally this much this year, this much next year, so people can expect it.

I mean, we're growing, it helps you budget for it.

My two cents.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Had a motion from Councilman Bernstein to delete the item.

Do I have a second?

Second, um.

Scott.

Aye.

Barenstein.

Aye.

Bertrand.

Rayford.

Aye.

Channer.

Aye.

17 is an ordinance amending Title 10 of the municipal code and title traffic regulating the operation of off-road utility vehicles on city streets.

The first consideration was approved July 6th, 2022.

Uh move second reading.

Second.

Anyone want to be heard?

And for the council's benefits, the original that came forward on first reading has been presented.

And then there's also an alternate ordinance for the council's consideration.

Cleaned up a few housekeeping items as well.

I'm going to throw another wrench out there.

So do you do we need to move for discussion?

Well, if we're already in discussion, do we need to move your your amendments?

Well, they're just for the councils consideration.

I think we don't have an opinion one way or the other as to what's accepted or not.

What you did was you had the original ordinance and then as modified based upon the input that you were getting, correct?

Yeah.

Well, some of it.

There was some cleanup that we needed to do related to city employees being able to operate.

Right.

So that is part of what was cleaned up.

There has been, I guess, some input received, and Caleb can comment on this too regarding the downtown protection area.

We have left it in.

So if there's interest of the council to remove that, that would have to be something that's moved today.

Additionally, we did do some checking with other municipalities.

Caleb spoke with the city of Council Bluffs regarding the DOT tires.

That's a provision in their ordinance that they do enforce.

And I know that there is requested feedback required from the council.

And so there is at least one municipality that is currently doing that.

Well, what I wanted to talk about was the downtown area to allow it.

I think that we could be creating an ordinance that we can't police if we have the city chopped up too much.

We have to remember that downtown is 56 square blocks.

And most of those streets are a thoroughfare from one side of the city from Lewis Boulevard to Hamilton.

So I just don't feel like we're going to have this big high traffic people racing through.

I think they don't want to lose their privilege.

I think they're gonna maintain the 35 mile an hour.

I think they'll have the tires that they're required to have because they want to have the privilege.

But I just feel like cutting downtown out of the footprint is too much, and I think it's kind of at the risk of our downtown businesses as well.

Julie, I kind of back you on that just for because a lot of those guys that are driving those vehicles, it is recreational.

And it's in downtown is kind of the recreational zone.

Um also I I I got on the horn and talked to the DNR because there was some confusion, I think, with the local DNR guys, and then as you moved up the chain, because I would have liked to have seen um Floyd Boulevard included, just because it's a thorough that leads area and stuff, because now you're gonna have people kind of weaving in and out of that north side.

I also think that it would have been nice to see um uh Hamilton up to the place where it becomes a highway.

But I did talk to the DNR guys, and one guy was like, Oh, absolutely, you can it's just a city decision they can make, four-lane only means highway and all this stuff.

And as I made my way up the ladder, that quickly um evaporated that support, and then the local guys actually circled back around and said no, what I said earlier was wrong.

So as much as I I would support and did the homework on it, did the work on can you go down Floyd Boulevard?

Can you go down?

Because they're technically not a highway, because the other piece of the piece of their literature says in the code says roads, but roads and highway, we is interchangeable.

Yeah, and that part of it.

So just so the public knows that we did did the work on that trying to get that there, but and I did do the work to go up the ladder all the way to the DOT or the uh DNR, and I just don't see a way we can squeeze those thoroughs in, but I'm with you, Julie, on the downtown part of it.

I would support that.

And it's if we don't want to create an orange can't use.

Right, right.

And we we're gonna create an ordinance that we can't police.

I think the state what I got from the state, what I got from the DNR guy was is that with with like council bluffs and and our our size municipalities being involved is he thinks the legislature is gonna have to jump back in and we might be one of the the reasons where they jump back and number one put a license plate on these things, number two, um you know, allow for more define four lanes within a municipality.

So I think it's gonna head back to Des Moines either way, but uh you know, we're pushing here locally, we are I think the idea, you know, as as we endeavor to try this.

I you know, I I do like carving out some of those areas just to see where we are and what we go in.

We've talked about, you know, uh a year from now, you know, if it looks to be working and things work, we can always, you know, increase those areas or take a look at those things.

I you know um I I don't know, Caleb, uh what your thoughts are as it relates to Caleb.

Can I have Reagan come up first?

Oh, never mind.

Caleb Christopherson, Assistant City Attorney.

So um sorry, when you wanted she just said she'd like Reagan to come up first.

I don't want to.

Caleb, you can stay up.

You can stay because we have got some questions.

Reagan can come up.

I just want to circle back to you about the downtown area because again, we have to stop thinking of downtown as historic Fourth Street West and East.

It's 56 square blocks.

So when we eliminate that, we are eliminating hundreds of businesses.

Yeah.

Reagan Cody, downtown partners.

Um I did send a message to city staff.

Basically, the conversations that I had, we've had these for years about scooters, electric bikes, tons of things on wheels, basically in downtown.

Um with the OTVs, it was always lent towards the once they're considered a city vehicle, they are now being enforced.

At the time we were having those conversations, though that wasn't the case.

So basically had to let city staff know that talking with those that were all in those discussions previous years.

Basically, if it's city enforced, there's really no reason to leave out downtown because it's going to be enforced citywide.

So by creating that barrier, it really wasn't an issue.

It was kind of a moot point.

And you in the position of downtown partners director, how do you feel about you know affecting their business that that could be opportunity, you know, where people come in from the edge of town or whatever.

Yeah, sure.

Any way that people can get to downtown is is great.

It's fantastic until you have issues or if you have any problems.

But with something like this, when it's a citywide ordinance, you're really specifying that you think there's going to be issues in downtown, and I don't think that's necessarily the case.

I think a city street is going to be served as a city street.

They're going to be asked to act as they would anywhere else in town.

So really by saying you can't come here makes someone believe that why, what what am I going to do here that I would not normally do somewhere else?

Really shouldn't be an issue.

So are there trying to think through the downtown sector and the roads that lead into downtown?

Are there any Gordon?

Gordon and Hamilton and Floyd.

So you can't so you won't be able to take Gordon or Floyd or Hamilton to get to downtown.

What about Lake Board?

Right.

And you already have the parks identified, which I believe would cover Chris Larson Park.

Right.

So we talked about that as well.

Okay.

Um I believe the only thing that wasn't in there was a parks and rec moment.

I know we have our maintenance guy downtown right now who would probably love to travel in something like that for clean programs and things like that.

So that also thinking forward in the future, if you are going to use those types of vehicles to clean in downtown, that would also be an item to think about.

I know you get out there in the county and those Lawton and Anthony and Mobile guys, they're pretty excited the idea were coming in.

So it's kind of fun.

Something different.

Think about it as a new form of transportation.

There's gonna be some resistance, but like anything else, it's okay.

Sorry, Caleb.

Just as a reminder, the the zone was put in here at at uh council member Rayford's direction to see how it goes.

Our office is ambivalent to whether it's there or not.

The downtown zone, you mean?

Right.

We we uh we were asked to put it there, and so it's we're asked to take it out, then it's out.

So as a reminder, uh the way it was put toward our office was that it was a matter of traffic congestion, vehicular congestion, and pedestrian safety.

So that um you know business considerations weren't really discussed too much at the outset there.

Were there any other none of the none of the enforcements were changed?

I didn't see any of the enforcements were changed.

No, still still sticking with strict enforcements.

We could still confiscate the buggy if we need to.

In certain circumstances, rare that's a rare circumstances.

Yep.

But yes.

So the only thing I I guess we would ask you to look at the alternate that was proposed just for the housekeeping uh items that I had mentioned.

And then if there is an interest in deleting um the downtown area, that would be a deletion of 10.55.030 sub two sub G.

That's the specific boundary for downtown.

Yes, we would ask that you accept the alternate and move it.

Before we get to moving other Caleb, I've just got to I want to make sure that we're clear in addressing all of the items.

I think the number one issues has got to be overriding issues got to be safety.

You're comfortable with the ordinance you've drafted, safeguards the user of the UTV, pedestrians, and other vehicle traffic.

Say that one more time.

Am I comfortable we're comfortable with?

Provides safety for the UTV operator, pedestrians, and other vehicular traffic.

Maybe assuming everybody follows the rules, right?

That's my rule.

And are the rules are you comfortable that the rules can be enforced?

Oh, I think I think I am.

Yeah, I just if you you're asking my uh professional opinion, I I would say yes.

And if I could just say within the confines of the law, we've done what we can as far as putting the items out that we can control safely.

I I forgot to mention this, but in the alternate version, we did also include a slow-moving vehicle triangle, which is included in the other.

Required on the UTV.

Yes.

So that has now been added on the back of the vehicles also requirement as well.

Okay.

Also, I think that's a that's in the state uh in the state literature as well.

It is.

Okay.

Good.

You're comfortable that you've addressed the noise issue.

Yes.

Comfortable that you've addressed required safety equipment on the V on the units?

And are there they mostly parrot the state requirements?

Are there modifications and additions that will be required when somebody goes in to purchase a UTV that would be for off-road use, and when they advise the seller that they're going to be operating it on road, are there required modifications to the unit?

I don't think I can really give I I mean possibly.

Likely, depending on the what they're gonna be purchasing.

The seepoint requirements, the windshield requirements, all of those are what the state code is requiring and asking, so all of that has been included.

And I couldn't tell you how with that purchase.

I don't know the answer to that.

Okay.

My name's Penny Tobin.

Um I can address that.

Um like she said, some units come with turn signals, some don't.

Um ninety percent come with headlights, brake lights, and then turn signals is an add-on to that.

You come with seat belts too, don't they?

Oh, yeah, seat belts, you can put a four-point harness in there, all kinds of safety stuff.

Um my question is about the tires.

Why are we requiring like a motor vehicle, a car?

So, Penny, let me ask you, because the DNR guy said that most, and maybe I'm maybe he doesn't know.

He told me that most of those tires that are coming out now have that stamp on it, or don't they?

They already meeting the requirement, it's kind of a moot point, or is it, or does it, or do you be your as the seller?

I have not seen one.

So you have to change out any of these tires that you're doing right now.

I know that change out.

The tires that come on most units are soft.

So they're doing less damage to the roads.

And if we're going with a DOT tire, that's going to be more like a a car tire, an SUV tire, which is gonna put us in.

I drive a Jeep and it's got big beefy knobs.

It's it's what's the code say?

Because he he acted like it was a moot point, cut out of I had that with the right.

There is no state code.

The state does not require any kind of tire change whatsoever.

Because I just asked him, the are the stuff that's coming on the manufacturers or putting out, is that legal on the roads?

He said yeah.

So that maybe we're thinking too much on this one a little bit.

I don't know.

Well, a lot of I'm sorry, uh I mean uh not to be too contradictory or uh, you know, I'm not throwing spears or anything, but a lot of the uh apparatuses that come with tires that are stamped NHS, which means non-highway service, they are softer tires, but there's also a lot less um, you know, per per square inch compared to the weight of the vehicle, a lot less rubber hitting the road, and so when you're getting up at the higher speeds 30, 35, if you need to slam on the brakes, uh you're not thinking too going to be stopping as as quickly as you would with road tires, just on a you know uh per square inch basis.

Yeah, this is just you're not you don't have as much as much rubber meeting the road, so you can have less controllability.

So that section, just for the reference was 10.55025 sub-7.

That references the DOT marking.

And uh I would say what's it say, Nicole?

DOT requires those tires.

Or stamp or something like that?

No, this isn't just in our draft.

If you wanted to see where that followed, it says tires approved for highway use, which comply with sections.

There's a lot of sections here.

10.321.440, 10.321.441, so forth 432 as amended, which spar a manufacturer's DOT marking.

And some like that one of those sections prohibits studded tires.

Another section prohibits metal tires.

Um those are the references given in there, but essentially, you know, if the tire is marked with the stamp DOT from the manufacturer, that's what would be sell those paying for you sell those tires?

I guess I've never really looked.

I bought I've already bought a new set of tires for mine that are because those rubber tires that come on them.

Our biggest complaint is six months, the people driving on the roads on the streets and the and the roads.

Every six months they're buying a new set of tires.

Because they were out that fast.

I've got a bald one sitting in the shop right now.

So it would stamp right away.

Oh, he don't even want to replace him.

He's from South Dakota, so I don't care what he does.

Appreciate it.

So um do we have on the floor here?

So can I ask just a couple of follow-up questions still?

Um you're comfortable that the insurance coverage is in place.

Know that the title documents stamp on the certificate that it is not recommended for off-road is not recommended for on-road use.

That affect your analysis under the state code.

That does not affect my legal analysis now, because the insurance is still going to be required for operating streets and highways.

Everybody else is doing it.

Everyone else is doing as insurance.

Well, that's the point.

I mean, is insurance going accurate?

Yeah.

Um, then the last question I've got, or last point I want to make is that virtually everybody I visit with, especially those that are in the business of selling these units, they're they're a bit ambivalent.

I mean, they're comfortable with passing, comfortable if it's not, right?

But they they what they tell me is that this is all based upon the operator and the skills and capabilities of the operator.

The question that I've got is would you recommend increasing the minimum age from 18 to 21?

We didn't seen any other ordinances that have done that that we've I guess that I've reviewed or looked at, they've all nearly code is 18, I think.

Right.

Yeah, and I haven't seen uh in the in the the uh sampling of cities that I had presented in the in my email of July 9th.

Uh in that sampling, I didn't find any that had a requirement any different from state code in terms of minimum age.

So I um can't really give a practical answer to your question.

I wanted to add just one thing about the tires.

I got a text message from someone who owns that that he's actually one of our local firefighters that lives just outside of the town.

He thinks that the ordinance looks great, and he loves that the highway rated tires ordinance is going to be in effect, it'll keep the noise of knobby tires down and the sidewalls flex less going around corners, so it would lessen any risk for rollover issues.

And I just don't really like the restriction that you can't go downtown, it says, but he's not the only one that thinks that.

Okay, so where are we at right now?

Okay, so the as presented because it's coming back for second reading, it's as it was presented last week.

So we would ask at a minimum that the council move um to amend to the alternate that's been presented.

If you wish to take out the downtown exclusion, please state that and at the end of the day.

It'll be different motion, so go ahead.

Okay.

I'll move the alternates.

Second.

Are we voting it with the modification or never?

Just voting on approving the modification.

Then we can amend it.

To consider the alternate, yes.

Thank you.

Bertrand.

Aye.

Rayford?

Shanner.

Aye.

Scott.

I motion to amend it on that too.

Remove the downtown footprint from the so I want to make sure that I'm stating the correct section, and Caleb can verify this, but I believe it is 10.55030 sub two sub G, and that would be removed, which would take out the downtown um prohibition area.

Second Bertrand?

I Rayford.

No.

Shanner.

I got I don't have a huge problem with it, but I think we're jumping into this and jumping in.

I'm a guy that when it comes to something this dramatic, I think you should wait and see how it goes for a few months.

So I'm voting no right now.

So we have three.

And Bernstein.

Aye.

Okay.

So then the second consideration would be the alternate as presented with the removal of the downtown area.

Yes.

And I'm assuming that we're not going to move third.

No.

So if we what I'd like the council to consider is for third reading, increasing the age from 18 to 21.

I don't I'm I'm assuming that there are no I don't think you can't not do that.

You we could do it.

You just you're not seeing it in the state code.

Our our ordinance can be more restrictive than the state code, and it can be inconsistent with other communities.

So we can do it if we want to.

I'm not we'll just make that motion now.

Let's just vote.

That way we'd have to put it on.

That way we've got a clean clean for third push it.

Let's let's let's throw a vote on it, which is totally cool.

Okay.

Well I'll move to increase the restricted age from 18 to 21 years old.

Is there a second?

A second.

It's called a courtesy, right?

Rayford.

I I I'd like to hear what your thoughts are, Penny on Penny Tobin again.

I it's it's nothing to do with you guys, it has to do with the news channels.

And I don't know if what you guys put out there.

Um if somebody could explain it a little better, because the first words is Sioux City Council passed, and people were taking these on the street.

They didn't go past the first reading or anything else, and I was getting hit up like, oh, these are legal now.

And I've turned away probably 20 people in two weeks because it's not legal yet.

Same thing with fireworks when they pass it the first units, it just takes time.

It just like people want to go out on the street.

But we're not gonna do third reading, I can tell you that.

That's not passing today.

And you just want to make sure that we make it very clear that until we approve third reading, it is not law.

Yes, please.

It is not law until we approve third reading.

Yeah, because people were going crazy.

We have ATVs going out there, and it didn't make a clarification for the public and for the news as well.

If the council passes third reading next Monday, it is not effective until publication, which will be the Saturday following.

Okay, at the council meeting, so it doesn't go into effect until it's probably information on to the other dealerships too.

Okay, thank you.

What are you penny?

What are your thoughts on the 18 versus 21?

There's not much maturity between 18 and 21.

If they're gonna be bad, they're gonna be bad until they get in their 30s.

So you want us to make it 31?

They can go to war at I'm over 60, so I don't care.

But yeah, it's I think I I don't see a big difference.

Um 18 to 21.

At 21, you're legal to drink, so I think they can't drink at 18, so they're safer at 18 than they are at 21.

Exactly.

I don't think you're not supposed to.

I apart from out from the consumption of alcohol.

I I think there, with all due respect, I think there's a big difference between an 18-year-old and a 21 year old.

I really do.

I think there's a significant difference in those three years.

I don't know.

I'm I'm speaking from experience, and I've raised three voice, so eighteen to twenty-one wasn't much difference.

They were still doing stupid at 21, so it call a vote.

Call a vote.

No, no.

Scott?

No.

Bernstein.

I Bertrand.

Okay.

Anything else you want to um vote on the amendment.

Second reading as all the amendments.

Yes, thank you.

Second.

Already Ben has brought it up.

Oh, okay.

Sorry.

We just got to call the way.

Shayner.

Aye.

Scott?

Bernstein.

Aye.

Bertrand.

Aye.

Rayford.

Aye.

Thank you, Mayor and Council.

Thanks, Kelly.

Thanks, Caleb.

The copy of that will be attached to the agenda for third reading.

We'll incorporate all of the amendments from today as a clean version.

18's a resolution approving a project concept plans for the Big Sioux River Levy Extension Project third from July 13, 2026.

I'll move that.

Second.

Can I use you just for a second?

Scott?

Bernstein.

I Bertrand.

Aye.

Rayford?

Aye.

Shayner.

Aye.

19's a resolution approving amendment number one to the consulting services agreement with JEO consulting for the Big Sioux River Levy Extension Project deferred from July 13, 2026.

I'll move that.

Second.

Bernstein.

Aye.

Bertrand?

Rayford.

Aye.

Shanner.

Scott.

Money's a motion authorizing negotiations with the mayor of serve as our flexible spending account administrator deferred from July 13, 2026.

Can I ask that items 20, 21, and 22 be discussed at the same time, Mayor?

Yep.

Do you vote by motion?

Yeah.

Just discuss them all at once, or you want to move all three of them at once.

Um I guess Terminally taking that one at a time, so I would just say have a general discussion as and then you'll have to move each one if you're going to make a different action.

I agree.

Okay.

Go ahead.

So is this Janet or Janelle?

Either one.

So in in looking at these, were these items bid as a package?

Were they bid together?

Were they built bid separately between the flex the hang on one second?

You guys want to speak on it?

Um this is the gentleman that owns the property on the big two.

He thought you were gonna get called up.

Oh, you want to hold off?

Sure.

Come on up.

Okay.

Sir, yeah, please.

I just uh I'm Todd Eggman, 1615 River Drive.

This is my wife, Jody.

We own 1601 River Drive.

Um I just wanted to say I was just very disappointed the way this transpired.

We would like to have had some consideration, some foresight that we were still an issue.

We did not realize we were still you were still pursuing the property in the flood levy.

You purchased the three homes west of us.

We were never notified or informed that we were ever considered our property.

We were told it wasn't necessary.

We received a call from City Engineer Gordon at 215 Monday, last Monday, that we needed to be at the council meeting at four for a vote for the property being needed purchased for the flood levy.

This was the first notification we had seat received when we found out we were being discussed before this for a while.

We have no desire to sell.

Lived here for 32 years, fixed up, ready for retirement, it's paid for, had it put in a trust.

Our daughters live in Riverside.

Her son is moving there five blocks away with grandkids.

We thought we were gonna be there for a while.

Uh you know, it's uh in town acreage, five lots on pavement.

Uh all my equipment's off the streets, everything's in garages.

What was on I didn't what did you say was off the streets equipment?

Trailers, trailers.

I have three trailers.

I'm a contractor, uh remodeler, also radon mitigator.

So I have a couple different trailers.

So we just we were looking for options.

You know, do you really need the whole property?

Can we just sell what's in the floodplain, which is just a corner of our lot where my other garage is?

That's all I was so Gordon.

Can you speak to that?

Because I I appreciate and respect what you're saying in terms of the sudden.

We've had a lot of dialogue, and I and I know there's been some dialogue about sort of the urgency of going forward, especially with regard to acquiring some of the properties.

So I would like to see Gordon.

Can can you at least share with Todd and his wife some of the updated dialogue, the plans, or do we need to reconsider this?

You want me to do here or or privately?

I think Todd's comfortable with you discussing at least a little bit now and setting a plan.

A little bit, but I would assume privately too.

I mean, this is a little bit more.

Why don't we uh have a seventh?

Uh we Rick and I are public work teams leaders, which discusses these kind of things.

So we're having meeting on the 27th.

Would do you have any availability?

And you could just come back to the phone.

We're actually planning on going on vacation.

Oh, okay, that's fine.

We can meet with you another time before that.

What you tell us what works, and we'll sit down with you and go on.

Anytime after that.

Anytime after the 27th?

Yeah, the next one.

We leave on the 24th.

You leave on the 24th, and you'll be back.

August second.

August 2nd.

So, like when we talked on the phone, I thought you were extremely uh reasonable.

I really did.

We had we had a great discussion, and I I feel where you're at.

The crazy part about it is you actually understand that, and and I appreciate Mayor Scott on this one that he agrees that this should have been done like was an 11.

Is that when you were standing on the dike back in 11?

I mean, there's no doubt.

I mean, this started in 2008.

Yeah, I mean it just it should have been should have been captured.

The hard part is that what we talked about, and the public may not understand is that when not if when the next flood comes, right what's put in place right now is you're gonna get wet either way, because the solution that the the the brilliance of the city came up with before we got here, which was they're gonna they're gonna construct a temporary dam behind your property to stop the water to save the 224 downstream, and after they shoot all the engineering and find out where the heights are, the rally is your house should have got took when it was wet.

That's that's the reality.

I mean, and they they took the three, they should have took the four.

That council didn't do that.

So, you know, that it it's it like we talked about it, it really it stinks, but to actually for the city to do the right thing and not do a temporary fix and uh so that area, those 224 downstream don't get flooded again.

Uh the heights the height.

Now it's just a matter of getting you guys the right amount of money and options and everything else.

That's what sucks.

But it does because our house never flooded.

Just corner part of our property.

Yeah, I did.

I was there our house.

No, our house didn't.

My garage, but that's what I said.

I was in your standard backyard.

You didn't you didn't get wet.

So I just wanted to do this because of the can the city returning needs to remind us where we're at in the process.

Okay.

So we'll have just been nice to be a partner.

Yeah, in the station as opposed to waiting until we're all fixed and and all of our projects are complete, and we're like very close to retirement.

Yeah.

And so we are moving our kids next month, five blocks down the road in his dad's house that he built.

Okay.

Thinking my daughter would eventually take our house.

Well, and that that really was never our plan.

The engineering that was presented to us was that from where we're at now down, where the three houses are gone, that would be enough.

But then second glance at it said, well, wait a minute, we need to go up more.

So that was never council's plan to ignore or anything intentional.

That's how it worked out, and that's how we proceeded.

We were in a situation situation, not being not trying to be evasive to you today, but because we're at in the legal process, I would suggest that you and Brick, you guys meet first, and then you might have a way to handle what you want to accomplish when you get back from vacation, is what I would suggest.

Okay.

Are we going to complete go on vacation and we'll set a work plan that allows you to stay where you're at?

I'll set up a special meeting with the three of us and them.

Well, not with them.

You talk to your city attorney before you do that.

Okay.

We'll meet we'll meet with them after the that meeting.

Right.

All right.

So we're going to delete this.

What?

No, I think we're still moving forward because this is we already passed.

This is to this is to move forward with the plan, the conceptual plan.

That's true.

Hire a consultant.

This gives us the flexibility to now start working through some of the details.

What Gordon can do in visiting with Julie and Rick as part of the public works team, start visiting a little bit, better understand your issues because we've shared the same concern about the acquisition of properties in your neighborhood, and we're trying to manage it the best way we can as well for your benefit as well as the community benefit.

So we'll do the best we can, set up some meetings, and then we'll fill up with dialogue in the next coup two, three weeks.

Correct, Gordon.

That's that's your understanding?

Yes.

I'll set up a time with them.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay, now we will go to 20.

Okay.

So I'd like I'd like to better understand Janet how all three of these contracts were bid either as a package or separately, understanding some of the nuances between the bids themselves.

Um, and better understand the numbers.

Janet Fuller, HR benefit manager for the city of Sioux City.

These three did go out on one let, but they were all individually marketed.

So there was an FSA, there was an HSA, and there was a Cobra.

We did receive responses from all three who um bid on this as independent bids.

We went with the low bid on the FSA, we went with the low bid on the HSA, and we went with the low bid on Cobra.

We did receive an email back from IBC, who was the low bid on Cobra, and they said that their pricing for Cobra was contingent upon them also receiving flex.

But they were independent, so they're not what I saw in the email was there was an $80 difference.

Um there's actually for the HSA.

Let me just read this, it'll be better.

Um $3,351.20 cents annually annually on our flex administration, $360 annually on the HSA, and then if we bring Cobra in-house, which is what we are prepared to do at this point, is that's why we asked for number 20 or for number uh 22 to be deleted, is because we're gonna bring Cobra in-house, and then we'll be saving the dollars on all of that administrative cost, plus we'll also be retaining the two percent fee.

I have a question that it doesn't pertain to that, but who has an HSA?

That's news to me that we have an HSA in this city because I don't know that we ever took action on that.

I do we have an HSA, it began in this this past plan year.

It was in your it was in all of the open enrollment packets.

Well, I certainly would have opted for an A HSA before a cafeteria plan, I can tell you that, but okay.

That's news to me.

Thank you.

So Stuart, before you introduce yourself and comment, Janet, very quickly, it it seems to me that maybe in the process that the bidders didn't necessarily understand that each was going to be viewed separately, because for example, had IBC not understood it was all one package, they would if they're not going to administer the COBRA rights separately.

Wasn't was there an assumption by the other two or all three that they were going to be viewed as a package?

There was no indication on any bid that we received back that it would be a package deal.

And when we announced the recipients of each uh product line, we did not get any pushback on the other from the other two on not receiving the COBRA bid.

And it is our plan at this time to take COBRA in-house.

Stuart Lee with IBC.

Um that is a little bit of a scary proposition to be honest.

We work with hundreds of employers, and I don't have one that does Cobra in-house because it's a federal law that is very scrutinized if it's not handled properly, and it's pretty darn inexpensive overall for a group of your size to have somebody on the outside doing it, we take all the risk if something's handled improperly for the three or four thousand dollars.

I don't know.

I think our bid is eleven hundred dollars a year.

Um Janet, how much is it saving us by not using a third party?

Um the low bid was gonna be 1111, so it's gonna save us 3333.

Oh, here it is, yeah.

333.

But we have to pay someone in-house to do it.

No, actually, it's gonna fall to the HR department.

And we administered Cobra when I first started here.

So no one has to spend any time or work hours or anything like that on it.

There will be time spent on it.

Right.

Oh, time is money, labor.

Time is money, right?

But when I look at the costs overall, when you look at how to to come up with the best value, it was to bring Cobra in-house and give Ameriflex the other two.

Go ahead, Stuart.

Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt.

No, that's okay.

Um we've been doing your flex for 10 years, and um I know when you go out to bid that erases everything, but we're local.

Um last fall, if you remember, we uh were talking about this same issue, and I can tell you there were dozens of your employees that thanked us for keeping it because they walked as we talked about last year.

They walk in our office, they don't understand Cobra, or they don't understand Flex and HSA administration.

They give us their receipt, we cut them a check while they're waiting in the lobby.

So it's it's very easy for them.

Um I think the bids are pretty darn close when it's eighty dollars on a twelve thousand dollar bid overall.

So I understand it.

The two percent rule does not apply, but if we want to have dialogue to discuss it, we we can, correct?

Correct.

The two percent rule is for purchasing, not for services.

Right.

That's what finance informed me today accept this, and we can choose to go local.

Correct.

That's not under that rule.

What's that process?

We're doing it right now.

Oh, but what's the property?

Can we move stay on the floor?

You just move somebody else, that's all.

Yeah.

These are just motions to enter into negotiations.

So you could move whoever you would like.

That was responsive to the RFP.

You're already implementing it right now.

Yeah, we have to take it.

Cobra, so this would be seamless for the employees.

I love your cost saving attitude, by the way.

It's not that's not what I'm saying at all.

The uh I like the idea of saving money.

I'm just kind of curious from a from a customer standpoint.

Yes.

Our staff knows a lot of your employees by name when they come in.

So yeah.

Yeah, so you're doing it right now.

How long you've been doing the COVID?

Um, probably eight or nine years, maybe seven.

Probably four years.

Would that have to be rebid if we if we carve send that back?

Would that have to be rebid?

The intent right now is to just bring Cobra in-house.

So they wouldn't have to re-bid it.

They just negotiate, but they'll continue to do it for $80.

Difference, right?

It's not an AD.

The overall three combined.

We were $80 higher on it's about 12,000 two thirty-one was our bid.

They were 12,001 fifty, I think.

And that's why I was asking the question about whether it was bid as a package, whether it was understood to be bid as a package, or whether they were separate line items that could would be reviewed and approved separately.

There was I I do think I think there's value in looking at them find, and I think there's value in recognizing local vendors and supporters.

Um, I think we need to have the discussion.

And for clarification, when it's authorizing negotiations, it isn't negotiating the price that was submitted as negotiating the contract terms essentially.

So what is then submitted as the bid is the bid?

Yep.

Understood.

Understood.

Well, I'd like to move that we enter negotiation with Stuart's company instead.

If we decide to go down the if we decide to go down that path, I would like to ask for a deferral so that Ameriflex has the opportunity to also present their information.

I'll move we defer 20, 21, and 22 for two weeks.

Second.

Hi.

Rayford.

Shayner.

Hi.

Scott?

Hi.

Bernstein.

Hi.

23 is a motion approving the roundabout design or a traditional signalized intersection in connection with the Hamilton Boulevard Triview Avenue intersection improvement project.

Motion is requested to delete this item.

I'll move that.

Second.

Can I have one comment on that first?

Because it's going to come back.

So just to add to the conversation, somebody just talk about when they bring it back.

What if we don't do anything?

I'd like to inject that in the conversation.

Well, the only thing that we'll have that in our discussion in public works, and that way we are.

And that's related to the development on the west side, correct?

Right.

The west side of Hamilton.

So we'll bring that back to public works and okay.

I've already added it to the 27th.

Um give me all jacked up for this, and then you can take it off the agenda.

I've already added I told I already added it to the 27th agenda.

Rayford.

Aye.

Shanner.

Hi.

Scott.

Bernstein.

Hi.

Bertran.

Hi.

24 is a resolution approving the guaranteed maximum price submitted by Keywood infrastructure for phase one of the water treatment plant.

Facility plan improvement project.

I'll move it.

Second.

Well, we have this either going to vote yes or no.

I don't get it.

We're trying to follow the contract language as to what is required.

There are two alternates for consideration.

That's correct.

Okay.

Tom, come on up.

Give us the great news.

Tom Pinkle, Public Works Director.

Um, higher than the 60% cost estimate.

Which for the public is greatest maximum price.

Yep.

Uh yep, the guaranteed max price is what GMP stands for.

We went into a uh pre-construction contract with QIT.

Uh that lasted a little under a year for services for uh getting us to the point of through design up till this point, and then at this point they provide the city with a guaranteed max price.

To date uh we got that on the 11th, and that price was the over budget.

Um 467 million dollars, and the budget is two eighty-five.

Tom I don't want to interrupt.

No, no.

Can you help us understand why the committee that's in place recommended the key with contract?

Yes.

Uh so when we early on we interviewed five proposals to BCMR.

Some of those were uh teamed up contract or scored proposals.

Yep, yep.

And uh so on our committee, on the uh scoring committee to which is different than our design committee.

So maybe so on the score.

In your RCA, you said that the committee recommended you mean they recommended key Wit initially, not now.

Yep, and the thank you.

That's what that's the clarification.

Yep, and there was a committee member that sat on the scoring meetings.

Okay.

But they the committee as structured is not necessarily recommending key WIT for this contract.

Yes, so just for transparency for the for the community, because I think there was this got a lot, a lot of heat last fall.

So the original the original plan that came in back in 2022, there was considered was from Hazen.

That was the 270, right?

They came back with the hard number, that's the 158, 158 million for the for the the direct cost, 47 million for the contingency design, 63 million for you, basically inflation.

Yep.

And 30 million um was kind of what they snuck in there for their fee.

That's the 270, it really is 300 million dollars.

That was the number that key with tasked, we gave them 3.2 million to see if they could hit that number.

That's correct.

At that part of it.

And so what's interesting about it is, and I want to compliment Tom, you on this, they came in at 467, and the public needs to understand what this council is doing today, which is is a win.

And I do want to applaud what you've done.

They came in at 467.

That's 193 million dollars over budget.

That's seven, they missed they missed this by 70 73%.

And when I'm in construction and I give a bid that misses it by 200 million, we call that an FU bid.

It's kind of like when a guy wants me to build him a deck and it's 10 grand, and I really don't want to build the deck.

I say, okay, I'll do it for 25.

And that's kind of how I feel like that when this name, this this bid came in.

It was like, well, if they'll take 420, they'll probably take 460 type things.

Like if we got them by this, if we got them by the stones at 420, we're gonna make them, we're gonna make them bite off 460.

So will you build my deck for 10,000?

So when you when you look at that straight through, so I want to go back to what this council did, Tom, and what you did to put us in this good position that we are in right now as a council.

So when we first got on this, we insisted on oversight, and you know, you and I kind of butted heads on this a little bit because it it was it's rattling, it's a big project.

And for the record, I'm not suicidal in my truck and my tires on my truck are and my brakes are fine.

Um so but the uh I met with Tom and we looked at the first thing we talked about is we want we wanted to make sure that we had off ramps in place um through this.

Um and how do we do that?

Is we first thing we did is we made key wit on fate on the phases go apples to apples on their bids.

So a lot of times in these big construction projects, they'll push the dollars off to phase two and phase three of this project, which then makes them hit their 270 or 300.

We forced them to go apples to apples.

So I don't applaud you for that.

You forced them to stay apples to apples on the on the bid.

So what we're seeing is a true apples to apples bid on this this portion of it.

We also then held keywit to the timeline, which I thought was great.

Is all the way kept saying is we identified the off ramps, what's our timeline?

We got to stay on it so that if we do get in this situation, we can bail.

And to your credit, which I didn't think we would get them here in uh before August, and there's a couple other my colleagues that didn't think we'd get there.

You held their feet to the fire, and now we are in a position that we can off.

They got the GMP to us in the and when you demanded it, and we now have those off ramps.

So again, good job there.

They put you put us in a good position there.

We also then we can you and I we sat down and we talked about calling out the bid packages.

And see these big companies like this, and that's not that's just how they roll when you bring these big players in.

They put bid packages together that were too big for anybody small, they bought they were overbonded, and it really puts in a position where only they can they can do the they can get the work.

And we called that out and was able to get to get some of our local guys some packages along the way.

Now there's a caveat there.

They also talked about the qualifying bidders.

We call it out there how they qualified the bidders, didn't we?

All the way through.

Yep.

And they were disqualifying people that competed against them.

That's inside baseball.

That's that's classic CMR, CMAR construction.

And we all we it's the clay, it's the playbook all the way through that they're running through there.

So we we called that out.

And what we really did was at the end, which I thought was interesting, is a couple of our local guys, I don't want to call them out by name, did get some work in this monster of a project.

But ironically, then what they turned around and did is they put contingencies in there of what 10.8 and 4.8.

They put extra contingency dollars on our local guys saying that we don't trust they can do what they say they're gonna do, which oh, by the way, puts them in position A.

Total screwed you.

I mean it's a total rope-dope on this thing.

So I don't want to look like that we're just with that.

We went into this that we didn't want to work with this player that we did, but they're just they're putting us in a in a in a situation that we can't um identify.

So to think that we're the only community that has done this is not right.

As you guys know, I shared the information with you that Corpus Christi, Texas, did the same thing they dumped Kiwit.

They they they started off with the 750 million dollar bid, they ended up at 1.3.

Corpus Christie said on a wastewater plant, said no, thank you.

Then they turned around in Maryland, same thing, a 1.2 billion dollar project, bam, they went to 3.3, they disqualified.

To Tom's credit, we talked about this.

Said, hey, why don't we call these guys and see what kind of an off ramp it was to get away from Kiwit?

And what was the response?

No problem.

Yep.

With nobody got hurt, nobody ended up dead.

Everything kind of went there, but everybody kind of everybody kind of went their own ways, and it was a pretty smooth transition.

So if we choose to disconnect ourselves at this point, we're okay.

You've done the work, we've done the work to create the off ramps, we're within contract.

We don't see any issues that if we want to, if we choose as a council to disconnect, we can disconnect ourselves on that end of it.

And and so my recommendation to the council would be is that we do rec we do reject this contract.

We're gonna use the off ramps that we put in place.

Let's go rebid it.

I think we can save 150 million dollars minimally on this project, which is still a lot of money.

And so I can already hear you know, Bill Burroughs and those guys out here.

I gave you your 15 minutes of fame, Bill, barking at me about how you know, well, you know, it's really easy to be an arm chairm chair quarterback after you know the contract's already in place.

And what I would say is that you know, again, this would be the place that I would call out Alex Waters, I would call out you know, Shane O'Kain, I would call it.

I would call out, you know, Shane, you know, Cain, I would call it.

And that's not what I'm going to do.

I'm not gonna call that out.

We are where we are.

Like I said all along.

Yep.

No, we did, but Bob, they were going to slow play this all the way through.

We had I think you know we ought to just sit here and say we got a good deal right now.

They're gonna if we wouldn't have inject if this new council would not have injected itself, we would have missed that.

You know what?

You can sell that to yourself all the way through, but I we've talked that they did they there was that we would we would right now we not have a GMP in place and we would be stuck because their goal is to get get communities like us a little bit pregnant.

That's the goal.

Okay, it is so when you look at an off ramp all along, it was part of our riddle.

All they were doing is right now, it never would have happened.

Max never would have happened.

That's okay.

Never would have happened.

You could talk you guys are actually in the field.

That was the new council.

That's the problem.

That's the problem with that happened before December when this was rammed in.

That they didn't have these conversations with the professionals in the business community around.

That was the problem.

So you said what would we have done differently?

What would this council have done different?

They would have included the professionals in the business community round, they would have slowed the process on.

But again, let's go.

Let's go back to we're in a positive place.

So don't we're in a positive place.

We're in a positive place.

Okay.

So again, I think we should vote it down.

We've got an opportunity.

We've done the work to reset this thing, and um, you know, it's too late because we signed it.

It's too late now on the design because what we should have done is we shouldn't have took a hasty DNR recommendation on the size of the plan.

We should we should actually took our time and said, you know what, what's the real size that we need?

Because I know we're saying we're not overbuilt, but we're now we're contractually up, you know, we we're stuck with the DNR on the size we've got to build.

But wasn't a revenue, it was an order.

Yeah, I mean, of course it was an order.

They're cutting deal, and the the city wanted it off their books as quick as they could.

No, that is how it took consent.

That is how it works.

So, anyway, the uh under an order from the Turkey General.

We've done the oversight, we put ourselves in a good position.

Let's vote it down friendly, and let's move forward and let's get some more people in here and let's let's for the taxpayers' purpose.

This was a win for Sioux City.

This what you did, and congratulations.

Tom, a couple quick questions.

Um, we did get value from the work that Keywit did to this point.

That's correct.

The design and the engagement as we work with Hazen.

Yep, they so it's not as if as we're getting to this point and have the off ramp that all of a sudden we're looking back.

We we got value.

We got value, that they just didn't give us the price.

And and we've anticipated this a year ago, right?

Yeah, yeah.

We anticipated that this could be a possibility.

Um the question that I've got is to make sure that you are comfortable that if we take the off ramp, that we're gonna get good competitive, qualified bids from good qualified companies, and you're comfortable with that.

I am okay.

Yep, that's all I need to do.

Well, Tom, you can share with them too that the players that were in the that defaulted that that didn't get the bids are just thankful to come in, they see the same number and they know they can be competitive.

If they didn't think they were gonna be competitive, they wouldn't be you know that's correct.

So we'll leave it at that.

So I have two questions for you, Tom.

One, obviously, if we reject this uh GMP, uh, how much of a delay would that you know would would occur in if that are we under a timeline for we are under a timeline.

This project has to be done December 31st, 2031.

And we have notches along the way, dates of completion for parts of it, right?

Not for phase one.

We have an uh a timeline for phase two.

We have a timeline for the uh the um big um the levy product, not the levy, but the repairs to deploy channel.

Right.

So we have to follow those.

We have that audit that we're almost completed with that we need to have completed.

Um with the rejection, then what kind of delay are we looking at?

Well, so we're looking at a couple month delay.

We have to bring back uh the termination agreement because if you guys reject it today, I have to go try to negotiate with QIT to bring the price down.

Um I don't think that negotiation.

Yeah, I doubt they'll bid won't.

So what do they have?

30 days to unilaterally rebid it if that's not successful.

We have 30 days to negotiate and not pass that.

So if it's five minutes, it's five minutes.

Um I think the negotiation might not last long uh due to the difference of price.

Uh from there, I'll bring back next week a termination of their agreement.

Well, they're already paid out, but that'll in the in the contract there.

Then hopefully a week or two after that, I'll bring back the plans and specs for you guys to approve.

Which we already own.

We already own, we already have the construction permit, and we'll put that out on the street for uh some six to eight weeks to bid.

We're still talking to contractors what they feel comfortable with for their estimating team and what they offer resources out there to uh to get a good a good number, a good satisfactory bid number they feel comfortable with.

So I think that'll add another two months to this project.

But should still be well within the consent order deadline.

Yeah, two years.

Yep, yep.

And I want to thank uh the council members that you know we have the forethought to go out there and start planning for this decision today.

You know, in case we do reject the GMP.

So we've been working on this for several months, and uh it's at the direction of the council.

Call the roll, please.

Are we voting on approval or or the first resolution is if to approve?

So if you do not want to approve, vote no.

No.

Scott?

No.

Bernstein?

No.

Bertrand?

No.

Rayford.

Oh.

25's resolution not accepting the guaranteed maximum price submitted by Keywood Infrastructure for phase one of the wastewater treatment plan facility plan improvement project.

Move it.

Second.

Scott?

Bernstein?

Hi.

Bertrand.

Aye.

Rayford.

Hi.

Painer.

Hi.

Twenty-six are panhandling signs and bus ticket program.

Wait, some really good slides coming out.

Yeah.

Uh Jill Wanderscheid Neighborhood Services Manager.

So just a quick overview, requested overview on how things are going with our bus relocation program and our panhandling signs.

So whenever I present, I always like to remind everyone kind of how neighborhood services fits into city organizations.

So we're part of the economic and community development department.

We have several other things that we work on out of our office.

A lot of housing rehabilitation, public services, public improvements, and affordable housing creation, in addition to what we do for folks experiencing homelessness in our community.

So our bus relocation program.

We've been doing this for a few years now.

We have 32,000 programmed each year.

So coming up in our current year already, time flies.

So the rules we follow, they must be literally homeless.

So that means staying in a shelter, car, bank building, camping.

They cannot just come in and say, Oh, I'm staying with a friend, I want to relocate.

We don't consider that experiencing homelessness.

They have to have support where they're going.

And that can be a variety of different things from friends and family that are willing to take them in.

We occasionally have people that are referred to us by other service agencies that want to connect with maybe treatment in other community that they have a bed at.

Typically, we're re uh reuniting people with friends and family that are saying that they can stay with them.

Um we also have a follow-up, Jill, to make sure that when you're relocating an individual that he or she is getting to where they're going and is being taken in by family member, another shelter otherwise.

Short answer is we do not.

Um the only way we would know if they um don't make it to their destination if they contact us.

Occasionally they do, they'll contact us with bus issues or something like that.

Um a lot of the people that we serve do not have cell phones.

Um they're coming in literally off the street, so it'd probably make it a little bit more difficult to determine that.

And we're also taking what they're saying at face value.

Um if they're telling us that I and we vet that out quite a bit.

If we think something doesn't sound quite right, we'll ask a lot of questions.

Um, we'll have them sometimes call the person that said they'd take them in while we're standing there to make sure.

Um, because we do that for a variety of reasons.

Number one, we want to make sure the person's safe and successful, but also if the city is spending money on a bus ticket, we want to make sure that there's a viable place that they're going and they're not coming back in a couple days too.

So not a vacation.

Right.

Um, and we also have a requirement that the destination is at least three hours away.

Um, we did put that in place for the same reason.

Um when we first started doing this, we kind of learned by trial and error there were um people returning or they were going um when we had closer destinations.

So we just want to make sure that what they're telling us, we vet out as much as possible that they are actually going to a place where they have support.

You don't want to pay for a vacation.

Correct.

And we send a little care kit with them to help them.

Yes.

Yep.

Um, so so real quick, you said that there was what was that 32,000.

Uh is is that money raised, or is that money that comes?

I mean, where does that come from?

Those are local funds.

So when I talk about us being like 99.9% federal and state funded, that point one percent is typically like programs like this.

So these are local dollars.

Um none of our grants will cover something like this.

And so um that's why the local source is utilized.

It's not an eligible expense, I should say, for other grants.

Um so 2026 that just ended.

We ended up spending um just over 36,000.

But because of the way the credit cards are um reconciled every year at the end of the fiscal year, almost 6,000 of that will actually post in this current fiscal year, and then when we end this fiscal year, it'll be the same thing.

So we did actually end up on budget.

It just looks a little odd because of those dates.

Um 206 people were relocated, so that gives us an average about 177 per person.

So yeah, 278 homeless people.

You relocated 206, and we have 270 homeless people.

I'd say that's not gaming on them.

They keep replicating those numbers don't seem to material.

The math isn't math.

I mean, there's so many other things that are happening, and so many, you know, one of the things that we try we try to figure out like what's actually going on.

Um we ask, of course, how did you find out about the program?

But we also ask questions about why you're here.

How long have you been in Sioux City?

And I thought about doing a slide on that, but the slide would have been like a hundred slides.

There's there's really no trends.

Um we just had two people, for example, um, that were living up in Orange City for two years.

They got um evicted out of their apartment.

People dropped them off at the warming shelter, warming shelter um worked with them to find another family member that would take them in, and so then they sent them down to our place, and we I it's just it's all over the place.

People meet someone online, they come here for relationship.

Um there's just every situation seems to be unique from what we what we um hear.

So um, but in March we did start tracking how they were finding out about the program.

Um, and since then, 88 people have been relocated.

21 saw one of the signs, so this is the large one that's in um the bus terminal right now.

We get a lot of um referrals from service providers, a lot of referral referrals from warming shelter, and the rest were um just random that were a little bit more difficult to quantify.

Um, so we also did put these signs up in some areas around town as well, and we've also gotten some people coming into our office from seeing those.

Um, so feedback, there are any thoughts about changing how we're doing it, how we're qualifying people.

We're open um to hear that too.

See it as a success.

I do.

A lot of what we try to do is catch people before they get into our local system here.

Um we do not have enough resources for the people that are experiencing homeless here homelessness here.

We all know that.

And so um a lot of times the people that the warming shelter sent down to us are people that are new to the community um that haven't yet hit all of the systems we have in place.

So why not um you know reunite them in an area that they can actually get support other ways because they're probably not gonna get supported here because of the lack of task.

Well, the reality of it is this is very compassionate, do you agree?

I think so, actually.

Can we get you to support?

Yes.

This isn't just you know, I don't want to portray the the signs, and it's like you know, that it's just you're ramming people in buses and shipping them out, and that's not what they're doing.

No at all.

No.

Uh letting moving people to where they can get more support.

And if you saw the destinations, I think that would also help too.

I mean, I don't think people are going to, you know, choosing to go to Fargo, no offense to Fargo, but you know, if I was experiencing homelessness, that probably wouldn't be a first destination for me unless I had someone there, you know, that was actually meeting me at my destination.

You're steering them towards a friend who may for shelter or a relative or something like that.

Because that truly is yeah, it truly is the fastest way they're gonna get help because they need support.

Yeah.

Um, and then the panhandling signs, these went up in 2024.

Um, and so that was in response to uh a lot of community concerns about panhandlers out on the corners and in the medians.

Um, and so the signs direct people um to give or go to SuCityAssist.org.

That is the home of the nonprofit that our office created during COVID.

But there's also a list of all the other agencies that assist those are experiencing homelessness that they can give to.

One thing I always like to bring up too when we talk about panhandling is I don't have any stats to back this up, but the people that we typically see, we meaning our staff that are out and about panhandling are not the same people that we know of to be experiencing homelessness that are coming into our office that are on our list once in a while, but the vast majority that we see are not recognized as people that we know are they maybe professionals.

Yeah, a lot of times I just try to remind people they're two different populations.

Not all the time, but we would we would say most of the time anecdotally.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yes, I met a lady that I stopped to help.

She was loading up her car with her panhandling sign, et cetera.

And her car was parked in a restaurant parking lot, so I got up and went out and asked her, you know, what assistance she needed, and she just said I needed money to help pay my rent this month.

So I mean, everyone's not homeless, you're right.

Um so we can't really track um if other nonprofits in town have seen it increase because of the signs.

Um our nonprofit, we had a balance of about 400 and or 540 bucks when we started with the signs, and a total of 45,000 now has been or 45,000, I wish.

4500 has been contributed, and we've expended 933 dollars.

And so it's not a large amount of money.

Um, and we tend to use these funds for for whatever reason, things that cannot be covered by specific grants, someone's not eligible for a certain reason, or it's not um something that's allowable per our grant rules.

And so we end up doing a lot of like one-offs with these funds that person just needs, you know, they need their rental application fee covered to apply for housing.

Well, we don't have a grant that that covers that, for example.

Or um maybe they're not eligible for a birth certificate because they're literally homeless and they won't do our intake right away.

We need to build that trust.

And so we might um get their birth certificate while we're trying to get them connected services.

Another thing that we've done at times too is gas cards, people that are living in their vehicles that want to relocate um to where they have support.

We don't have a funding source that allows that as an expenditure, so we've done a small amount of that too, um, case by case, because obviously that's um not what's typical using um city dollars for um gift certificates and Bill, is it fair to say, I don't know what words in your mouth is it fair to say that the funding was greater early on in the program, or is it the last?

I kind of wanted to see some 90-day data.

Oh getting 90 day data or 100 day or six month data we've got to do.

Is it run its course?

No, I definitely think it's increased.

Yep.

Um we've had some larger donations.

We had one from um a church, we've had um people that give monthly via PayPal.

Um so we have that too.

So no, I would say it continues to increase each month by small amounts, not huge amounts.

Excuse me, does your office help with the administration of a birth certificate or IDs or otherwise?

Absolutely services, Rob asking.

Is it a dual service though?

I mean, don't isn't that kind of hard to do in right now?

We have plans in place.

I mean, is it kind of double services or same staff?

Okay, so um our intern typically does it, and so it just depends on how we're able to fund it.

So HART typically uses all of our funding sources that are grant-tied that have really strong rules, and sometimes there's people in there that we can't qualify, so then she uses this fund instead.

The reason I brought it up is because on the panhandling side of the I completely agree, it's two different clientels.

There's a clientele that's homeless, there's a clientele that's professional, there's a clientele that needs a $20 bill to head back into the rail.

And so you the number one sign across that I did some research on panhandling and from an effectiveness if you're gonna do signage, the number one, I guess the number one sign is that I so that I would like to propose that we that we replace these with.

It just says stop panhandling, question mark, stop giving.

That's it.

That's a number one sign.

And it it's it and there's nothing cold about it because again, this isn't about the homeless or anything else.

But I think sometimes when you dance with a sign like this, you know, it's if we're dancing is what we're doing.

So sometimes the direct is the best.

It's like stop handling because it's a hot time.

Stop handling, stop giving.

And and uh because this this band-aid money you're giving these people at this point.

So that'd be I would like us to come up with a design with those uh four words if we could and run.

Yeah, we um did have a more um exactly what you're talking about, and we unveiled that back in 2023.

We got a huge amount of course you did, rejecting public pushback.

They were saying we we don't want to be told what to do, you know.

That was that we got a lot of calls, so that's why we backed off.

But we can definitely look at some options for sure and report.

I wish we had a QR code that you can just scan from your car to make the alternate donation right on there.

You know, the realtors are starting to use those once big banners in the window, then when you're at the stop line, you just hit the QR code and it takes you where you need to go rather than WW dot the web site.

Jill, is there any opportunity maybe to partner with media or someone with PSAs or something to educate uh community and uh as to uh you know if if I mean kind of to you know Rick's point if if we stop giving and and maybe give to if they want to give they can give to to this, but if we stop giving, you know, it's the supply and demand, right?

Yeah, we did receive a MERD grant to um do uh just that a ton of commercials, um and we also have some digital that was trying to remember what year that was 24, around the same time that we put the signs up.

Um so we can definitely push those out again too.

And and this sign, it does really address sort of to Rick's point because it says want to help those in need, give instead at Sioux CityAssist.org.

So it really is recommending that people not do you know consistent with what Rick is saying and try to administer it a little bit differently.

Yeah, definitely.

We'll follow up on that for sure.

Um, and then one other thing I wanted to mention too.

There's been a lot of discussion about how the ceiling coalition to end homelessness works.

That's that large group that meets every other month of all the service providers.

Um we've realized over the last year or so that there needs to be some more direction with that group because there's so much going on, so many great things too.

And so um, that is a we have a grant that we receive from HUD.

We're gonna use to do some strategic planning um in August.

And then one of the other things we want to focus on is reaching out more and um conversing more with the faith-based community and seeing what opportunities there are for um collaborating because that's definitely a resource that we haven't tapped into yet, and we really need to be engaging with them more.

So that meeting is on September 17th, so every faith-based organization in town will get um noticed on that, and so we're hoping that there can be some more collaborative efforts and and fill some of the other gaps that we have too.

So your department is conducting those meetings or question.

Um we're actually we have a third party um yet that will facilitate that for us.

I think so.

You've got a huge job.

You know, induct in often on different things.

Yeah, you're doing great.

Yeah, it keeps life interesting, that's for sure.

Got all that all air in there.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you.

Brad, I'm gonna set you up real quick.

Last last week, uh the reason we asked for this a couple weeks ago is because we knew we were going to participate in the what is it called, but like it was called the Isle Council Water Program.

Um we sat in on that and it really identified again those the big fours and with cancer being a huge topic, obviously, in the state of Iowa, and it's gonna be a huge campaign issue, and there's gonna be a lot of rhetoric around cancer issues.

So no matter where you weigh in on this, I thought it'd be a great opportunity for the public um just to get the facts on where we are at with our water supply and the things that we have done, even just in the last six months to really upgrade and to protect our waters.

And I think the citizens of Sioux City are going to be extremely uh happy um on what our water quality is and the things where we have some opportunity that we have things in place.

So, Brad, I set you up to be a hero.

Brad Pitts Utilities Director, thank you, council, for giving us the opportunity.

Um I think where a lot of the information stems from before we get started, uh, was the Department of Natural Resources Annual Compliance Report that really gives all the data on uh compliance for drinking water throughout the state.

Uh if you look at that report, what you're gonna see is that Sioux City met uh all state and federal regulations uh for 2025, and we continue to do so for 2026.

So, you know, we can't do that uh without our staff at both water treatment facilities and especially the underground utilities guys, especially on today on days like today, makes a little bit difficult, and we uh commend them for that.

So I got a little bit of fluff up front uh just to talk about raw water, kind of the treatment process.

Uh Sioux City is a groundwater under the direct influence of surface water system.

We pull water out of wells uh out of the Dakota sandstone and Missouri alluvium aquifers.

And that classification of groundwater under the direct influence surface water kind of derives from the water filtering through the sands and gravels on the river bank.

Uh the Missouri River is what recharges our aquifers.

Kind of a treatment overview, both the Southbridge plant and the zenith plant are both iron and manganese removal plants.

On average, we pump about 13.6 million gallons per day of safe, reliable drinking water to the customers of Sioux City.

Uh the following treatment processes we use aeration, coagulation, flocculation, sedimentation.

We have dual media filters at the zenith plant, and then we have microfiltration membranes at Southbridge.

And then we also have UV disinfection at the zenith plant, and then obviously we're chlorinating at both plants.

So quality control is kind of really where it starts.

We have sampling frequencies that vary from I put daily on here, but really it's every second, we're analyzing different constituents up to every nine years.

What do you only evaluate every nine years?

I'll show you they're coming up here, so I'll show you.

But the things that we uh test for over that nine year span are in or inorganics, organics, uh microbial and biological radiologicals, general water quality, and some nuisance substances.

So when you hear about cancer and drinking water, these are the constituents uh that they're talking about.

We talk about arsenic and radionuclides, we talk about nitrates, which you hear a lot about, disinfection byproducts, and then of course the latest and greatest, which is PFAS, which we're dealing with, and we'll dive into a little more detail as we get further into the presentation.

So we'll start with arsenic and radionuclides.

Arsenic is a sample that's taken every three years.

Radionuclides uh combined radium and gross alpha are between six and nine years, depending on the location.

And then as I should just mention the consumer confidence report, uh Siou City is required to put that report out every single year.

It comes out later in the year because we don't get the information from DNR until April, I believe it is, and then we got to have it out by June 1st.

So as you look at the data, the data has essentially already passed.

As you get it as a customer, you're looking at old data.

Um, but that's what we're required to do.

So as these results show up on the consumer confidence report, uh, alpha alpha emitters uh the result that we had was 5.5 pico per liter, where the MCL is 15.

Combined radium was 1.5 where the MCL is five.

And then arsenic, our latest sample was one part per billion where the MCL is 10.

And we also collected uh a system sample in June for arsenic, and it was a non-detect.

So we did do at the request of a customer, we did do an arsenic sample.

All right, nitrates.

One sample every year at each plant.

The results as posted in the consumer confidence report were 0.49 at the zenith plant and less than 0.25 at the Southbridge plant, where the uh MCL is 10 parts per million.

So a lot of people ask the question, why is Siou City any different than any other community?

And that can be attributed to a few things.

One, we're using uh wells, so the you know, the nitrates just aren't as high in the deeper aquifers, and then also we gain a benefit from some denitrification in the upper basins in the Missouri River.

So as we look at that, you know, we're using that water to recharge our aquifers.

Some people say, well, if you look at the big Sioux River, it it hugs that bank on the north side of the Missouri River.

But even though you see that, it doesn't have the same impact as the Missouri River does.

So those are kind of a few things, you know.

We can look at agricultural practices in this part of the state.

The Missouri River in this area doesn't have as much agriculture right along of the water that we're using, and the soil's composition plays a large part into that as well because we don't we get more uh percolation into the soils than other areas of the state do.

Brad, why is there a difference with the zenith versus the south bridge on the Yeah?

So the collector well at South Bridge sits further off the river where the collector wells at the zenith plant sit right on the riverbank.

So I think there's just that little bit of difference, a little more of an impact.

But to highlight you there, Brad, that the key on this, and this was a big point the other day at the at that meeting was nitrates.

People need to understand the public needs to understand the scale is one to ten.

That's the scale, one to ten.

We are half of one point.

So the scare of nitrates in our water in Sioux City, we've got good, we're good with nitrates.

Correct.

So that that's the message coming forth there.

So that's that's a great job.

Correct.

All right, disinfection byproducts.

If uh I suppose with the mayor being around, you know, we we've had a history with disinfection byproducts, but the more we learned about uh kind of dialing in disinfection levels and really trying to manage water age, we've gotten our disinfection byproducts to an excellent level.

The first compound that we talk about is total trihalomethanes when we talk about disinfection byproducts.

The MCL is 80.

And if you look at that right side on that running annual average, you can see that we're well below the MCL for disinfection byproducts.

We've done a lot of things to curb this.

Uh as you know, we're we're putting mixing systems in new reservoirs, and as long as we can keep that water in a in a first in, first out kind of mentality, uh, we're going to do very well with total trihelomethane.

So that's so that it doesn't sit in the tank.

Yep.

The second compound is haloacetic acids where the MCL is 60, and you can see that we have absolutely no issues with these, and all of these results are less than half of what the MCL is.

And like I didn't mention, but that's uh eight these eight locations every quarter, and that's what uh compounds are running annual average.

Brad, can you go back to your prior slide?

Because some of those numbers.

So if it's 80 parts per billion and you've got 50 on Gordon Drive, 66 and a half on Whispering Creek, 60 and a half or 60.8 Indian Hills 62 percent.

Excuse me, 62 parts per billion.

How are you addressing those higher numbers compared to uh on 260th Street 29.2.

Yeah.

So you'll see that a lot of those are during the summer months.

It's the hardest time of year for us to manage total trihalomethanes because while it has to do with water age, it also has a lot to do with temperature.

So we're seeing these much warmer water temperatures, and that just compounds the existence of the total trihalomethanes.

So these are areas where you see the higher numbers, those are areas that we try to focus on the most.

Uh we we have a pretty robust flushing program that we try to adhere to to keep fresh water in those areas at all times.

So even though we do all that, some of those are still a little bit high, and we we manage those as we can.

If you're because if you're evaluating it quarterly, I assume some of those numbers are higher and some of those numbers are lower.

Right.

They balance out to those numbers.

Yep.

And then lastly, PFOS.

Uh per and polyfluoroal alcohol substances are forever chemicals, as you probably hear about them on the news.

In January of 2009, EPA issued health advisories uh for these constituents.

If you remember, the Southbridge plant design was started in 2010, and at that time, the the health advisory was set at 70 parts per trillion.

I think if I remember correctly, when we sampled for PFAS at that time, they were similar to what the results are now, which is four and seven or wherever we're at.

We'll look at those here in a minute.

But in 2024, EPA finalized updated MCLs for PFAS and PFOA, and they set it at four.

So essentially we went from 70 parts per trillion to four parts per trillion overnight.

And what was the rationale to reduce it so drastically?

Yeah, I think after all of the um all of the research that they had done and its link to cancer, uh, you know, they decided to take a drastic step at that point.

You know, our message at the time when we had to notify the customers of Sioux City was that you know, PFOS isn't just here in drinking water now, it's in ever a lot of things that you do in your everyday life.

Right, pots and pans, different pots and pans, uh fast food wrappers.

There was a list that went on and on.

And we tried to pass that information on to the customers as best we could.

Not to undermine the fact that it's in Sioux City's water and we're gonna do everything that's required of us to get it below uh the MCL.

Um it's only the number, Brad, remember um from our public works.

Did they have a number at one time that was so small that it couldn't even be measured?

Oh, so what you're referring to there was uh the sampling technique.

In the beginning, when we were sending these samples off to be analyzed, I think there was only one location that could uh test to that uh low amount.

I think there was only one location that could uh test to that uh low amount.

I think those processes have changed in some of the labs, and I think they're a little more comfortable with what we're doing.

I hope so because this is a big deal to have writing on one lab that has the capability to measure that tiny of a sample, you know, to get to that number.

Yeah, and we're extremely close to the end still.

Uh I just want to reiterate that the PFOS is only found in the Southbridge plant.

The origin of the contamination was the A triple F.

I call it fire fighting foam, but the correct term is aqueous film forming foam.

Um we know that that is present in that area.

The sample results, the average for the past six months for PFOA has been 7.3, and the average in the last six months for PFOS has been 4.6.

We have our staff uh sample for these.

And if you look at every single thing that contains PFAS, it is a very, very testy test.

There's a lot of things that can go wrong.

And they have to be very diligent diligent about what they do before they take that sample, what they wear when they take that sample.

And I think some of these are a little bit elevated the last couple of months, and we're gonna revisit uh our sampling techniques to see if you know that 7.3 to me seems a little high, and that was just the last couple months.

Like that, right?

Yeah.

So testing and public notification requirements.

We've been testing since 2022, and we have met all of the requirements of the EPA.

We have done all the notifications that we've been required to do.

We post all of our results in the consumer confidence report, and all of the results are on the website for anyone to view at any time if they want to.

So from right now, nothing changes.

The compliance deadline for PFAS is 2029.

And here's the things that we're doing right now to prepare for that.

There's another caveat in there that I'll get to.

But currently we're under contract with Blacken Beach to do uh a water supply and treatment study.

What we're gonna do is we're gonna perform a stage one and a stage two hydro hydrogeological study for a new collector well site first and foremost.

This is just for the one site.

One, yes.

Yeah, people need on it.

One and based on that, it will determine if we can construct a new collector well in a location that does not have PFAS, or if we have to change gears and include and uh move forward with design of an activated carbon system to remove the PFAS.

That's essentially a filter that removes the PFOS, and then we have to ship the spent uh media off to be cleaned.

So we're hoping that the collector well site pans out.

If it does not, we're probably gonna have to move to treatment.

And we'll treatment is forever.

Yes, get a new collector.

Right.

Right.

So we want to get above it and get away from the contamination.

Right.

There's a lot of details that still need to come out.

One of the most unknown things right now with treatment is an affordable way to get rid of the PFAS.

And that's uh those are things that that information just keeps coming in that we're learning from.

But for the time being, this is the process that we're doing.

And the location of the new collector wells is I assume further north.

North, yes.

Yeah.

We still got a little bit to work on there, but uh we're working diligently to figure out a location.

Why would you go north?

Why would you limit yourself to go north?

Well, currently that's about the only location that we have to go to and still keep a radial collector well to get the the amount of water, the capacity that we need.

How far off can you be?

Uh is explain that.

Well, we just bought the McQuaid farm that's kind of on the Missouri River south.

Well, the the concern that we have if we go south is that's predominantly the flow of the groundwater.

So we don't want to go south.

See that we don't have PFOS.

Well I'm saying is you say you're going to do some testing.

Oh, sure.

Why would we limit ourselves is all I'm asking?

Understood.

We don't have to.

Uh we just looked north because we figured if we could get out of the plume to the north, we wouldn't have to be concerned about water or it eventually making its way there.

Currently, as as we speak, there is a provision out for public comment for a two-year extension on the compliance deadline.

If that passes into the new rule, I fully intend to apply for that two-year extension.

31 to 31, yes.

The reason being I is funding, essentially.

You know, it's gonna no matter which route we take for a collector well or for treatment, it's gonna be expensive.

And I think that'll give us a little extra time to prepare.

It's amazing that when they come out with 70 parts, not per million, not per thousand trillion.

Which is so minuscule.

You and now it's four.

Quite a jump.

Yeah.

Well, um four parts per trillion.

You can't even it's can't even fathom that.

Right.

But anyway, go ahead.

I think there was over the last number I saw was I think there's over 3,500 water utilities in the United States that are dealing with this same issue.

Somebody's gonna cash in on that filtration system right off the get-go, right?

Yeah.

So the last slide that I wanted to show, I borrowed from the Iowa Cancer Consortium.

They had some meetings here recently, uh, one of them which was in Woodbury County.

I don't want to forget about the uh private well grants program because there are a lot of private wells in Sioux City, and this gives them an opportunity to call Sioux Land District Health and have their wells tested uh for these same analytes that we test for at the water plant.

I can provide anyone that information if they wish.

That's all I had.

So we're at a message today that if you live in Sioux City and you turn your water on, it's safe to bathe in, it's safe to drink, it's safe to wash your face.

So give us a shot of confidence that with all of the noise with cancer stuff that Sioux Cities does very, very well when it comes to water quality.

Yeah, everything that we have shown today and everything in the past has checked out as far as through the Department of Natural Resources.

Uh we take everything very seriously, but when they start talking about cancer and drinking water, you know, we want to make sure that these constituents are first and foremost.

And while we're lucky enough not to have issues with most of them, the PFAS, the disinfection byproducts, those that are at the forefront all the time, we're continuously monitoring them and watching them and doing what we can to keep the water safe for everybody.

You know, um just to to Rick's point, uh, as we were at that meeting, the question was asked about uh drinking uh bottled water, and uh and someone actually said you know you uh most city municipalities uh do such a good job with filtering and and those things that you know you you don't know where the water is coming from from bottles, and so I appreciate this presentation especially because uh that question was asked, and and it was asked to me what are we doing as a city to make sure our water is quality and uh you you gave us a good presentation to Brad.

If you need the information, I didn't attend the session last week because I attended the session last fall.

If you need that information on the cancer consortium, I've got that if you need it.

Okay, let me know.

Thank you.

Citizen concerns Hello everyone.

Hello and uh welcome all you new people.

I'm really really really excited to see new faces here.

Um my name is Catherine Meyer.

Uh Mr.

Bertrand, I've been um communicating with you, trying to get a meeting with you.

Um a little history about me.

I'm from Washington originally, married somebody from the Midwest.

Washington State or DC.

Uh Washington State.

Uh married somebody from the Midwest 2009, moved to Sioux City.

Um, I was part of one of the few uh financial projects that were been successful for years uh here in Sioux City with the Sable Lot Store.

We were brought here to teach the owners of that store how to open it, uh I manage the construction and the um paperwork for that, bringing in uh things like food stamps, different aid programs, that kind of thing.

Little history about me that I'd like you guys to know since I'm gonna really bitch in a minute, is that I have about six different degrees.

I went to school until I was 55 years old.

Uh my lowest degree is a bachelor in science.

My degrees are in nursing at business management, real estate.

Um, uh mental health practitioner.

Uh what else do I do?

Um related to building insurance, that type of thing.

Anyway, um I prior to coming here um owned and started market graphics.

Uh, Mr.

Burktron, you may be familiar, the second largest real estate research firm in the United States.

I built it for my home.

I was involved in uh with Graves Development, the largest land developer in the state of Nebraska and Iowa in the Midwest.

I built about 90 homes per year back then.

Uh now, as I do, I'm the I'm the gal you'll see on the roof and working up here on Douglas Street on the old mansions, which is my retirement projects.

Um pretty quiet person uh till somebody really irks me, and then I make a lot of noise.

And the reason I'm here today, and I'm actually gonna ask the city to terminate employment of some people, and I want you to do the research, and I would like to meet with you.

I attempted to meet with Mr Scott, but he told me to get out of his office and never come back again.

Back in on November 4th, or excuse me, October 4th of 2025.

Um I had come back from Washington State after my mom passed away.

I had a gal in one of my apartment buildings who was a former stripper from Avrick's turntown, had not paid rent for some time.

I went to her house and told her I'd be evicting her.

The next morning, she uh created a fault scenario with my dogs claiming my dogs, uh attacked her.

I also breed um a cane corso.

I supply him to the U.S.

military at no cost.

Um firemen, uh, police officers, etc.

For uh service animals.

They're a very expensive animal.

Catherine, we got three minutes, and you're way you're gonna go way over.

So I'm gonna tell you about this.

Well, I have some things I'd like to send you all.

And first of all, I believe this guy might be the gentleman who handled the uh court case on that.

Are you uh Chris?

Is it?

That's Caleb.

Caleb, Caleb Christopherson.

I'm asking for his immediate termination when you read when you see these.

I'm also asking for the immediate termination of all the employees running the animal control, and I'm asking for termination because I'm intending on taking this city to federal court.

I have perjuries on these.

I have an attorney who brought up in court that I'm being targeted.

Attorney brought it up to the judge, and she said that's okay.

I would have ruled this, change this ruling anyway.

I have so many things on these tapes, and so many perjuries by these people.

They have cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars since I have been here, and it's time to react.

It's time for the city to sit down with me and look at these tapes, see the evidence.

Um, I want my dog back.

I have a terminal illness now.

It's been brought on by the um extreme stress that I've been put over for long term.

I have something called amylosis.

They DNE'd me, it did not come from my DNA.

I will die, but I will take care of what I need to do first, and I want my service animal back.

The one that was taken away from me by perjury, and that man.

This man also right there went outside of the boundaries of this job at the city and went to district court to make sure that I could not, so I could not do anything about the initial judgment that was made by him.

Your safety manager of the city was supposed to conduct that hearing.

He did not.

This man did.

This man owes my attorney, who is Mary Hamilton, if any of you know of she needs a she needs an apology.

Catherine.

You hired an attorney.

I did not hire an attorney yet.

I had an attorney during this.

You just said I've got an attorney.

I have an attorney on these tapes.

We already went to court.

These people perjured themselves, perjured themselves.

We're talking, I've got police officers, and that includes Mr.

Sassman, the sergeant, and his wife, Mrs.

Sassman.

They perjured themselves.

Thank God I had a judge.

What are we here for today?

I want to sit down with this city, and I want these people terminated who have committed criminal conduct against a decent citizen of this city.

I would suggest if you feel that way, you're in the wrong building.

You need to go next door to the county attorney.

Well, really.

Bob, do you think I haven't done that?

I went into you, and you told me to get out of your office and never come back again.

Now it's the same way you're talking here.

Bob.

Okay.

I went to you.

Time is up.

And you kicked me out of your office.

I would like to know if anybody in council would like to sit down to me.

I have a right and see these videos.

Six minutes and see that time is up.

Here are the court cases where they laugh.

Is up.

Is there anybody here in this in this city council who would like to see what's going on before this goes any farther?

Anyone interested at all in what's going on with this city and the corruption?

No one.

Okay, that's what I was here for.

Thank you.

No, thank you, Bob.

And I have no respect for you whatsoever.

Okay.

And by the way, why didn't we have a three million dollar sign on our water bob?

And it's at the audience of your computer.

I have no respect for you.

Okay.

Anyone else to be heard?

Rick.

Yeah, I got to follow that.

Seriously?

Man, oh man.

All right.

So the uh real quick.

First, the uh the RFP for the warehouse went out.

Uh Mayor Scott, that was your uh you re resurrected that.

So I applaud you for that.

And uh staff got on it, and I think that RFP went out this week.

I saw the list of it.

All I would ask is that Mr.

Myers updates his list a little bit.

It's a little 1994.

Um I added a couple.

Yeah, I know you notice the same thing.

It's been noticed.

Okay, well, that's why we're here.

So we're all tracking on the same page.

So again, uh I highly encourage those guys to take a look at that.

We've got a couple of sites you want to go.

Uh love and update on Jolly Rogers.

My wife and I like to come Wednesday nights going on a few cocktails down there at uh Craven.

All I do is I stare at that Jolly Rogers and you know let's knock it down or sell it or do something.

It's it's kind of it it's it's it's it's bothering people.

Um we got the chief update.

Um the process is is keep going there, we're down to four, it sounds like.

And also the other thing I would like to do is can we set up um Nicole.

I don't know if this is through your department or now.

There it looks like that they re we redid the grading permit process, the final draft is done.

Is that correct?

That's I would have to check with Steven.

Our final draft has been sent out.

I think we're still waiting for feedback maybe from the I don't know when the timing is appropriate on this, but I would love to pull together um uh a community meeting on that.

I'd like to pull in the dirt guys on that.

I know I've talked to like four or five of them, they said they would be open to come in before we actually put it into uh to the new up uh the upgrades we've been trying to do, it'd be nice to pull everybody in and just do you have the final version of that.

I don't know if I do.

Okay.

I got a redlined one, but I don't know if I have the final.

Okay, I'll ask Steve.

But I don't want to distribute it, but you tell me I can't.

Yes, okay.

So I'm trying to play by the rules.

Um and then lastly, and again, I'm not this is not a targeting or anything else, but if anybody uh had the privilege added two text messages and drive uh by our neighborhood warming shelter this morning.

Um I don't know if they've changed their policy again.

Maybe they're not letting many people in, but it looked like uh it looked like a hobo camp with people sleeping on the street all up and down there last night at day break this morning when I drove and down at uh I don't know.

I think we're all barking at the win again.

I just want to continue to uh stress that um uh compassion sometimes can be uh disguised and what we're doing is not compassionate, and again, I I'm gonna continue to to call and put pressure on the donors that are funding this and and to help fund the problem, which is the warming shelter.

And again, it's not personal, but that's just the feedback I continue to get from the community.

Um something has to change uh in that neighborhood.

So uh other than that, let's have a great one.

Greg, um just very quickly, I had good dialogue last week um with representatives from Unity Point, and I think we're we're making good progress on uh getting our arms around what health care is going to look like in our community, and I would uh continually um encourage everybody to not only uh engage with Unity Point but also Sully and Community Health.

They do such a good job.

I know that Mike and I had a chance to visit with their team uh a good couple of months ago, and they've they've extended the uh offer to meet with the balance of the council.

So if anybody's interested, please do so.

Um I think it's very enlightening, and I think it's gonna go a long way towards how we support Unity Point and how we see progress in Sioux City and in Northwest Iowa.

Um and also I know that Mike is planning on doing a planning session of the council, so I look forward to that.

And when you're ready for topics to be discussed, let us know.

Yeah, thank you.

Mike?

Yeah, you know, um uh I was just thinking I had a good meeting with Shayla over at the Warming Chilton.

You know, it's unfortunate that uh we can't determine and decide when homelessness happens uh and those things take place, you know.

I I think they do a good job at trying to to curb some of that, but obviously uh when someone is done on look, it it just happens that's uh you're probably a little more familiar on the same topic of when Rick went by or some neighbors travel by there was a bunch of people camped out on the street.

Did they lock it down at certain time in the middle of the year?

I think they open at like well like at four, maybe for the evening.

I think is is if you don't have a job, you know, then there's a certain time you have to be there, but if you have a job, then you can get in later.

Uh but then there is a point that's a good thing.

But there's a time down.

Yeah, so you cannot get in.

So right, and yeah, so it it happens.

But uh just uh, you know, last week I had the opportunity to to represent the council with uh the the peace run uh and they did give me a certificate of appreciation uh presented to Sioux City.

Uh it says we the runners from around the world offer you our heartfelt gratitude for your enthusiastic participation in the Siri uh Chim Chinmoy won this home peace run.

Uh and he said that oh dreamers of peace come, let us walk together.

Oh lovers of peace come, let us run together.

Oh servers of peace come, let us grow together, and uh got a chance to meet all the runners, and they were from all over the the world Scotland, New Zealand, Russia, and Mexico.

Even stopped in to have uh a cup of coffee the next morning, uh, you know, at the spot.

And so uh that was just a great I mean uh and I will say they they had a thing over at the boys and girls club uh and those kids were sharp.

They they could point out different places on the map of where the the runners were from, and uh I was really really impressed and proud of uh of of our youth uh with that.

Um, you know, we we talked about it earlier, but the uh water quality meeting, you know, had a chance to to go there and and you know, and I do appreciate Brad and his presentation and uh just want to reiterate to our citizens that you know uh we are doing everything that we can to keep quality water for uh for our citizens and such.

And you know, Mike, this came up, and I don't know if it's even possible.

Uh but you know, I'd heard that the mail delivery has changed in Sioux City or something is coming.

I don't know if we can get the postmaster here to to kind of talk about what that looks like for Sioux City.

I don't know, but uh it is, but hey, I'm gonna throw it in your court and see if that's something possible that uh at least our our residents and citizens can can hear from we don't even have a postmaster located in Sioux City, we don't know it's Sioux Falls.

Well well, whoever runs they still have yeah, I was gonna say they have a they have a location, but we don't have postmaster here.

Do we think they do we well because um Larry Hennessy's daughter did it, she got transferred to Davenport, but I think they still appointed at least a temporary okay summer summer did it.

I don't think she's back yet, she might be.

Yeah, thank you, Mike.

And again, thanks.

I always appreciate our our citizens and and staff for for what you do when citizens are coming out.

So Julie.

Well, I have the opportunity to go to a ribbon cutting uh at the Boys and Girls Home and Family Services who are celebrating uh that they are in their new home.

Um the kids have been moved, uh they're sort of filling up.

Um they have a list and doing their intake there.

Very important to our community.

Uh these kids live there, they go to school there, they receive counseling there, um, and they're at our their most at risk.

Um their new location is Boys and Girls Home and Family Services.

They're in the Indian Hill Shopping Center where Sunshine Foods used to be.

They purchased some years ago the entire campus there.

Um so they have their business service there, they have their school there, and their counseling services there, they have a community garden there.

There's a lot going on.

They just have to finish blacktopping the parking lot and they're set to go.

But they are up and operational, and I congratulate Art Silva, Terry, everyone who does what they do over there because the place is really huge, and it's just uh kind of a one-stop, and everybody's there, and it's it's wonderful.

It's just very wonderful.

Um I want to circle back just to reiterate uh where we're at with this wastewater treatment plant again.

Tom is on top of it.

Uh we're going to exit the contract to the point at the fork in the road, which is where we are, and I'm going to disagree with council member Bertrand.

We always had an exit provision in that contract.

Yes, we did.

Uh confirm it with our attorney right now.

You and I agree on 99% of things, but just the reality of it is we would have missed the date.

You can't say that we would have missed it.

We were aware of the date.

I didn't say it, Tom said it.

We were aware of the date.

We can spend this anyway.

You can spend it where you want to.

Shame on Tom because it was in there.

Yeah, but but you understand how these guys work, Bob.

I think the later, I don't care.

Right.

They try to.

You're saying there.

I'm not gonna argue about that.

That's okay.

I didn't bring that up.

Okay.

Anything else?

Well, I just want everyone to know though that our team and our legal team did have our exit ramp put in place.

I uh I have all the confidence in them, and it was there.

So let's not twist.

Yeah.

Oh good.

All right.

I move to adjourn.

Bernstein.

Aye.

Bertrand.

Aye.

Rafer.

Hi.

Channer.

Aye.

Scott.