Village Board meeting — Agenda

MEETING MINUTES Village of Palmyra REGULAR VILLAGE BOARD MEETING Monday April 6, 2026 Palmyra Public Safety Building 126 N. First Street 6:00 P.M. The meeting was called to order by President Gorsegner at 6:00 pm. Roll call: Ball, Deichl, Gorsegner, Petruska, Smith, Tucker, -present. Wallace arrived at 6:05 pm Pledge of Allegiance Communications Part time PSO Officer Joe Pierce was introduced to the board. President Gorsegner said he has reached out to Town supervisor Josh Gajewski to try to another meeting scheduled to discuss fire/EMS items Monthly Reports: Typed Reports were submitted from the following departments: Public Works, Public Safety, Recreation Dept., Library, and Clerk/Treasurer, Building Inspector Public Forum: none New Business: Discussion and Possible Action on the Following Items 1. Josh Meyerhofer from MSA gave an update on the status of the Westfield Project . All the bids came in higher than expected due to dewatering. UPI was better and they met on site and did tests and they were not as concerned. They don’t need a sophisticated system so the bid will come down with a change order. The Hwy H agreement has been drafted and sent to the Town for their review and we will need to follow up with them. Jefferson County is onboard. WE Energies , Brightspeed, and Spectrum were all notified of the development. We have gotten the stormwater permit from DNR. Other permits to the state are still in review. Tim, Scott, Joe, and Josh met with members of the BSLMD last week regarding the force main, it was a good discussion, and they will need to take it to their board . BSLMD is looking for type of compensation for us to use their force main. They also want to make sure they won’t be charged for anything connected to this agreement and we guarantee there is plenty of capacity. The CSM is finalized, the V illage can move forward on our public infrastructure project, Virtus’s delays will not delay our work. They may have a possible 3 month set back. 2. Wallace/Smith motion to award the contract for the Westfield Phase 1 project to UPI, LLC in the amount of $5,582,833.40. Roll call vote: Ball, Deichl, Gorsegner, Petruska, Smith, Tucker, Wallace-aye. Motion carried. 3. Smith/Ball motion to approve the change order #1 for the Westfield Phase 1 in the amount of $491,000 decrease. The n ew project amount with this change order will be $5,091,833.40. Roll call vote: Ball, Deichl, Gorsegner, Petruska, Smith, Tucker, Wallace-motion carried. 4. Smith/Tucker motion to approve the County Hwy H jurisdictional transfer of County Highway H from the Village limits to 0.55 miles southerly on County Highway H within the Village of Palmyra and the Town of Palmyra. There will be no islands created, that was one of the Town’s concerns. Village DPW will have to maintain it, plow and mow. All ayes-motion carried. This will go to the Town now for their approval. 5. Approval of the following minutes: March 17th Village Board meeting and March 30th Special Village Board meeting. Trustee Petruska said that there were no notes from the special meeting regarding the building assessment and she would like more detail put into the minutes. President Gorsegner had submitted the minutes to the Clerk. Petruska had emailed her notes out. The other board members would also like these notes as part of the meeting minutes. Trustee Wallace also wants the cost of $410 per sq. foot in the notes. This total would be $17,567,700 for the project cost of a new Public Safety Building per 5 Bugels. The Clerk will add Petruska’s notes and bring the March 30th minutes back to the next board meeting for approval. Wallace/Tucker motion to approve the March 17th meeting minutes. All ayes-motion carried. 6. Petruska/Wallace motion to approve the February 2026 financial statement, bank statement and cash account balances as presented by the Village Clerk/Treasurer. All ayes-motion carried. 7. Petruska/Wallace motion to appoint Deputy Clerk/Treasurer Heather Hazlett as a co -signer on Village bank accounts. All ayes-motion carried. 8. Tucker/Smith motion to adopt Ordinance 2026 -04, amend ing certain sections of Chapter 17 of the Village of Palmyra Zoning Code. This was already approved by the Plan Commission in March. It has to do with a few law changes in ACT 68 so we need to compliant. All ayes-motion carried. 9. Tucker/Wallace motion to adopt Ordinance 2026 -05, updating chapter 11 of the Village Code of Ordinances concerning recycling in order to comply with the current applicable laws from the DNR. All ayes- motion carried. 10. Ball/Wallace motion to approve the payment of the bills totaling $307,193.47 from the bill list and with extras presented tonight to True Value, Colonial Life, Elan credit card, Rural Water Association invoices, Northern Lakes Services, Fort Healthcare for drug screening, Velocity, Diversified Benefits, Cintas, Lake Country Court for citation money we got in that should go to their court, Rec. Dept. sports refunds, WE Energies . All ayes -motion carried. Trustee Smith asked if we could send the charges for Attorney fees that are related to open records requests on to the requester. The clerk said that no we cannot, that is not legal unfortunately. Roll call vote: Ball, Deichl, Gorsegner, Petruska, Smith, Tucker, Wallace-aye. Motion carried. 11. Tucker/Ball motion to approve an ap plication from Rebecca Nemitz for an Operator’s license. All ayes- motion carried. 12. Tucker/Smith motion to approve an a pplication from Emily Eartly for an Operator’s license contingent on her disclosing the proper information on her application. All ayes-motion carried. 13. Application from Tracy Greene for an Operator’s license . Public Safety Director Paul Blount spoke. He said that Ms. Greene is in the audience. Her background came back with a felony charge but after Clerk Mueller contacted Village legal counsel in regard as to whether the Village could outright deny her, the Attorney gave Mueller and Blount some information and Blount stated that after further consideration he is recommending approval of her license. This topic will need to have future discussion . Petruska/Ball motion to approve the operator’s license for Tracy Greene. All ayes-motion carried. AP/TB approval. 14. Public Safety Building status. President Gorsegner said the board needs to make it a priority on what we can do with the current building to make it as safe as possible in the short term. Trustee Petruska says somebody needs to get these items taken care of: grading, sealing of the walls, etc. and it shouldn’t be left up to the safety dept. employees. DPW and public safety committees should be involved. Petruska and Ball will meet this Wednesday to start getting things lined up and prioritize. Trustee Wallace will reach out to state reps for possible grants. Maybe they can come and tour the building. Put parameters in place so things are kept up. 15. Explanation of billing for fire calls. Dan Schiler and Mike Gartzke gave more explanation. They said that not much is changing from what we are doing now. What this means is a call is beyond a normal and it is catastrophic, car accident uses an extraordinary amount of oil dry, or several others to come and assist or call-in excavators, or hazmat. Currently we don’t bill for these types of things, and this would allow us to. People that don’t live here who are going through our community if there is an accident we would bill for our supplies. Trustee Petruska says that her research found that a lot of towns do this already , but a fee is listed and it is per ordinance, this resolution has no specific amounts. She spoke to her insurance company, and they told her that her homeowner’s insurance will increase based on this resolution. She wants a list of fees, and there is a contract with the town so does this leave them out of any of these charges. Trustees Tucker and Smith have the same concerns. T ucker is getting questions from the community. There is no fire billing contract with One Billing solutions per Dan, contract was for EMT services only. Dan says that village residents would not be billed for a house fire when losing their home. Dan says it applies to people that don’t live here, passing through. Gives the village an avenue to bill auto ins urance carriers. Dan says we need the resolution to move forward with a fee schedule with One Billing. Petruska says it is her fault for voting on this when she and the board didn’t have all of the information back in March. Petruska motions to rescind her motion from March to adopt this resolution until the Board sees a fee schedule , 2nd by Smith. Dan says probably w ithin 2 weeks he will have the other fees. Blount spoke to the board and asked them to think about how they want to bill “non village residents” or anything that is not covered under insurance if you are a village/town resident who already are paying taxes. All ayes-motion carried. Wallace/Smith motion to adjourn at 7:13 pm. All ayes-motion carried. Respectfully submitted Laurie Mueller, Village Clerk/Treasurer Minutes approved without correction April 20, 2024