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Record of Proceedings

Spearfish City Council Study Session, October 14, 2026

City Council — Wednesday, October 14, 2026
BodySpearfish, South Dakota
SessionCity Council
DateWednesday, October 14, 2026
StatusFILED
Video Record
0:00 / 21:39

Original source
Transcript — VerbatimClick a timed line to jump · ⧉ to share it

Speaker numbers apply only to this recording.

Speaker 1

0:00

Had to show up with style for

Unassigned speaker

0:02

that.

Speaker 2

0:06

Ready.

0:08

Okay.

0:09

So at 422, we'll go ahead and open up the city council meeting.

0:13

Um item one for us to or excuse me, city council.

0:16

This is our study session for next preparing for next week.

0:19

So item one is to approve the agenda as presented.

0:23

There are no changes.

0:24

Is there a motion on that, please?

Speaker 3

0:27

Move to approve.

0:28

Second.

Speaker 2

0:29

Motion and a second.

0:30

All in favor.

Speaker 3

0:31

Aye.

Speaker 2

0:32

Aye.

0:33

Aye.

0:34

That motion carries unanimously.

0:36

We'll go ahead and move on to item two review city council agenda for October 19th, 2026.

0:42

Michelle will get that pulled up for us and we'll roll through it here.

Unassigned speaker

0:48

Okay.

Speaker 4

0:48

Under consent agenda, we just have some minutes, and then there are a few more volunteer firefighters to add to our volunteer firefighter list for workers' compensation coverage.

1:00

If we do have the treasurer's report completed, we'll also add that in the consent agenda.

1:08

Angelica is still working on it, but hopefully we'll have it done before the end of the week.

1:12

And then under items for visitors, we do have a proclamation for respiratory care week, October 25th through the 31st.

1:21

Under added and adjusted wages, uh the parks maintenance and forestry supervisor.

1:28

And then a utilities operator three.

1:37

And the other parks is a promotion.

Unassigned speaker

1:42

A

Speaker 4

1:42

lot of these will all be eliminated since there's no items under all those departments, and we'll jump down to public works.

Unassigned speaker

1:49

Yeah,

Speaker 5

1:49

and actually I'm reducing this from uh four items down to two.

1:53

So

Unassigned speaker

1:53

uh

Speaker 5

1:54

first item is the final over underchange order for the Mountain View Elementary Alley project.

Unassigned speaker

1:59

Uh

Speaker 5

1:59

school board just approved uh their uh cost responsibilities for this last night at their uh meeting and

Unassigned speaker

2:07

uh

Speaker 5

2:07

yeah, so it's just kind of the balancing out some of the

Unassigned speaker

2:12

uh

Speaker 5

2:12

quantities for that project.

Unassigned speaker

2:14

Uh

Speaker 5

2:14

item B, uh we're not ready to move forward with that item.

2:17

So that one's gonna come off the agenda for uh Monday night.

Unassigned speaker

2:21

Then item C the dollar amount for that change order for uh the campground waterline project is uh a little over 40,000.

Speaker 5

2:30

Uh the main thing being changed here is making some changes to the uh dump station at the uh campground and replacing some uh pavement that's in poor condition uh in a so in association with that.

2:45

Uh so yeah, the majority of that cost is in surfacing as well as some plumbing costs to change the configuration of that uh dump station.

2:54

And I'll let Rex kind of briefly describe uh how those changes are going to benefit the campground, and we'll have some images and stuff to better explain it on Monday

Unassigned speaker

3:03

night.

Speaker 6

3:05

Yeah, thanks, Adam.

3:06

So just uh kind of go off of what Adam said there.

3:09

Um, this the design was done a couple of years ago for the water line down at the campground.

3:13

It wasn't until this fall that we were able to kind of move forward with the project.

3:17

And so uh at the time when it was first uh designed, it was talked about reconfiguring the dump station um to make it more user-friendly.

3:25

The way that it is now, it's actually kind of set up backwards and it creates a lot of uh traffic jams and uh it's difficult for for users to use the dump station as it's configured right now.

3:36

And so uh at the time uh when the design was being done that was talked about, but it was kind of pulled at that time for basically budgetary reasons reasons, and then uh when we did get the the bid that came in this year, it was significantly under the engineer's estimate.

3:52

So we do have a little bit of room in the budget to make this uh this change now if we want to.

3:58

So like Adam said on Monday, we'll have some visuals that kind of show you um the kind of the way it's configured now and what we'd like to do with this change order to make it uh more efficient and more effective down there.

4:09

So uh, and then we'll have it up for your consideration uh on Monday.

4:14

Okay, thank

Discussion Breakdown — Share of Meeting
Cannabis Regulation████████████████████████████28%
Legal Affairs████████████████████████████28%
Procedural██████████████████18%
Public Works███████████11%
Public Engagement████████8%
Transportation Safety███████7%
Summary of Proceedings

Spearfish City Council Study Session, October 14, 2026

The Spearfish City Council held a study session on October 14, 2026, primarily to review the draft agenda for the October 19, 2026, regular meeting and to discuss the process for selling available liquor licenses.

Consent Calendar

  • Reviewed items for the upcoming regular meeting: approval of minutes, adding volunteer firefighters to the worker's compensation coverage list, and a proclamation for Respiratory Care Week (October 25–31, 2026). Added and adjusted wages for a Parks Maintenance and Forestry Supervisor and a Utilities Operator 3 were also noted.

Public Works Agenda Items

  • Mountain View Elementary Alley Project: Final change order (over/under) was presented; the school board approved their cost responsibilities the previous night.
  • Campground Waterline Project: A change order amounting to just over $40,000 was discussed. The changes involve reconfiguring the dump station at the campground to make it more user-friendly and alleviate traffic jams, as well as replacing poor-condition pavement. Rex explained these changes were originally pulled for budget reasons, but the project bid came in under the engineer's estimate, freeing up funds. The council requested visual aids for the regular meeting presentation.
  • Equipment: A loader and v-plow purchased in August were recently delivered; a budget supplement will be brought forward later in the year.

Liquor License Fee Discussion

  • Finance Officer Michelle presented the issue. The City has two off-sale liquor licenses ($100,000 minimum bid each) and one on-sale liquor license ($300,000 minimum bid) available. Despite three consecutive bid openings, including the most recent one, the City received zero bids. Interested parties contacted the city shortly after the deadlines.
  • Proposal: Michelle proposed setting a fixed fee via resolution, allowing interested parties to apply directly through the Finance Office. The applicant would still undergo background checks and a public hearing before the council for final determination.
  • Council Positions: Councilmember Scott strongly supported maintaining the minimum prices to avoid devaluing existing licenses, citing recent off-sale sales ($101k–$107k) and private on-sale transfers ($215k–$225k). He was open to the resolution process. The Mayor and Councilmember Larry supported trying the resolution process given the repeated failure of the sealed bid process. Staff was directed to contact the interested party and bring back a formal recommendation for a fixed-fee resolution at a future meeting.

Public Comments

  • No members of the public provided comment during the session.

Departmental Reports

  • Police Chief Colin: Addressed constituent concerns about traffic backing up at Exit 12. Jurisdiction lies with the DOT and Highway Patrol. The DOT may perform a traffic study. The department is monitoring the situation, noting the backups have not fully extended onto I-90.
  • Councilmember Peter: Reported speaking at the Rotary Club, which hosted a visiting delegation of approximately 20 individuals from Rotary clubs in three cities in Thailand.
  • Administrative: Michelle noted she would be on vacation for the October 19 regular meeting; Angelica would cover. The council confirmed a quorum was available for the regular meeting.

Key Outcomes

  • The draft agenda for the October 19 regular meeting was reviewed and finalized.
  • Staff will contact the interested liquor license party and prepare a resolution to set fixed fees for the licenses for council consideration in the coming month.
  • Visual aids will be prepared for the regular council presentation on the campground waterline project change order.

Meeting Transcript

Had to show up with style for that. Ready. Okay. So at 422, we'll go ahead and open up the city council meeting. Um item one for us to or excuse me, city council. This is our study session for next preparing for next week. So item one is to approve the agenda as presented. There are no changes. Is there a motion on that, please? Move to approve. Second. Motion and a second. All in favor. Aye. Aye. Aye. That motion carries unanimously. We'll go ahead and move on to item two review city council agenda for October 19th, 2026. Michelle will get that pulled up for us and we'll roll through it here. Okay. Under consent agenda, we just have some minutes, and then there are a few more volunteer firefighters to add to our volunteer firefighter list for workers' compensation coverage. If we do have the treasurer's report completed, we'll also add that in the consent agenda. Angelica is still working on it, but hopefully we'll have it done before the end of the week. And then under items for visitors, we do have a proclamation for respiratory care week, October 25th through the 31st. Under added and adjusted wages, uh the parks maintenance and forestry supervisor. And then a utilities operator three. And the other parks is a promotion. A lot of these will all be eliminated since there's no items under all those departments, and we'll jump down to public works. Yeah, and actually I'm reducing this from uh four items down to two. So uh first item is the final over underchange order for the Mountain View Elementary Alley project. Uh school board just approved uh their uh cost responsibilities for this last night at their uh meeting and uh yeah, so it's just kind of the balancing out some of the uh quantities for that project. Uh item B, uh we're not ready to move forward with that item. So that one's gonna come off the agenda for uh Monday night. Then item C the dollar amount for that change order for uh the campground waterline project is uh a little over 40,000. Uh the main thing being changed here is making some changes to the uh dump station at the uh campground and replacing some uh pavement that's in poor condition uh in a so in association with that. Uh so yeah, the majority of that cost is in surfacing as well as some plumbing costs to change the configuration of that uh dump station. And I'll let Rex kind of briefly describe uh how those changes are going to benefit the campground, and we'll have some images and stuff to better explain it on Monday night. Yeah, thanks, Adam.

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