Public Works — Minutes

VILLAGE OF FRIENDSHIP PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE MEETING – Wednesday August 26, 2026– Page 1 The Public Works Committee meeting was called to order at 5:00 p.m. in the Municipal Building. In attendance were Chairman Antone Sindelar, President Robert Berry, Committee members Melvin Waller, Justin Hutter; also in attendance was Public Works Director Beth Schultz, Trustees Nadine Ashworth, Ernie Klicko, Brad Oberbeck, Village Treasure Sandy Shawback, and Village Clerk Rebecca Reuter The agenda for the meeting was: 1} Roll Call 2} Approve meeting minutes from July 22, 2026 3} Citizen input 4} Discussion & Possible Action no: Split Tree on Roberts Street 5} Discussion Regarding Health and Fire Inspections of Hotels and Motels 6} Discussion on: Room Tax 7} Discussion on: 2027 Budget items 8} Discussion on: Functional Classification Changes 9} Discussion and Possible Action on: Leaf Pickup 10} Discussion and Possible Action on: Tornado Siren Maintenances 11} Update on 401 Main Street 12} Public Works Directors Report 13} Adjournment A majority of the Village Board may be present but no Board action is contemplated. APPROVAL OF JULY 22, 2026, MINUTES MOTION by Waller, second by Hutter to approve July 22, 2026, Public Works Minutes, motion carried. CITIZEN INPUT Jerry Sonnenberg – Thanks for giving me this time. A couple of things. 1, I think Ernie and Beth need to be reprimanded for what they did because when I tried to do it, Ernie came in and told me I couldn't do it. And they did not know nor did they try to figure out that I'd already gotten permission from Bob, who was the chairman at the time, to go on and do that. I wouldn't have done that on my own. And he came in and interrupted 2 of my meetings with Beth. That's uncalled for. And whatever I have to do, if I have to run a petition, I will run a petition to remove Ernie from his position on the board. And, Beth, your true colors come out again. You did something that you told me I couldn't do, but it was okay for you and Ernie to do it when you did it with Kiera, and that's wrong. I know you guys are trying to remedy that. Okay? I understand that, but they should not have done that. And then they took her to the back office or the back of the building back there where there are no cameras. Nothing's recorded. Sounds kinda one-sided to me. That's leaning towards them not doing and following proper procedure. And I was not going to fire Beth. That was not on the agenda. I was just going to write her up for a couple of things that were in the handbook that Ernie kept telling me that I should use the handbook. And I followed it to the tee. They did not. I'm a little bit upset with you, Tony, from the perspective that you were in this position about 2 months now, something like that. And you have not introduced yourself to Kiera. You should have done that the 1st day. I know excuses are all the time. I'm too busy. I can't do this. I can't do that. No. You're the chairman of that committee. You need to lead by example. That was not an example I thought you should lead by. And we’ll see what happens. But, Ernie, I do wish you the best of luck. Beth, not so much. I'll just tell it like it is, you can smirk all you want it's not gonna change. You're not gonna change your colors. I'll keep telling everybody that. What do want? Klicko - Alright. This is getting personal. You might as well shut up. Sonnenberg- I'm not gonna shut up. He cannot interrupt me while I'm talking in citizen input. There’s to be no input from the board, and there's supposed to be no input from anybody else on this subject, period. So, he can't do that. He doesn't know the rules. Because that's how we've been doing it before. And when I was president, that's how we did it. Nobody got to make any comments until later, but not tonight. They don't know what the rules are. So, I've had my peace, and I'm at peace with where I'm at. I still think we've got a lot of work to do in the village, and we need to prioritize some things and make it come out for the better of the community and the citizens that are out there. That's how I really feel, Thanks. DISCUSSION & POSSIBLE ACTION NO: SPLIT TREE ON ROBERTS STREET Sindelar stated that it was brought to our attention that there is one tree on Roberts St. that is splitting. In the wind it does open up and close. It is borderline on the right of way and also on the property owners. Power line comes up to the tree, but the power line dead ends. Waller asked, so it is on village property. Sindelar believes eyeballing it that it looks like it’s on the village property. With a good windstorm it’s to the point where it could just open up and lay down. Hutter wanted to know if we could check with the electric company to make sure it’s not their reasonability. Sindelar stated that he already did that. He feels we should get a quote from whoever we are using to trim trees and see if they can take care of it. And also give the landowner a letter letting them know. If they want the wood, we can leave it lay there or have it all cleaned up. PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE MEETING – WEDNESDAY AUGUST 26, 2026– PAGE 2 Hutter feels we should definitely get a quote. Schultz will get that for the next meeting. DISCUSSION REGARDING HEALTH AND FIRE INSPECTIONS OF HOTELS AND MOTELS Hutter – Did talk to the health inspector, and they won’t do anything about Wrchota. He wrote up a good email with a path forward for us to address that. Again, we need to get the fire inspector there to do an outside visual inspection, and then a building inspector and then they might give us permission to go in. The email lays out the steps that he feels the village should take. DISCUSSION ON: ROOM TAX Hutter stands by his presentation that he presented last time. Months ago, he brought it up, and things he wanted to see. A room tax to him is just an addition of us forming our own tourism committee and a committee that represents the actual village. We work on village events, village projects. The same stuff he’s already doing in his resort. Every year, he’s doing better. He already wrote up a nice presentation. Everyone got that at the last meeting. We're capable, and the attorney clarified that we can make our own commission to do tourism in the village. Like he said months ago, we could have done it then. Anytime we can choose to go along that path. He think if we wanna review what he wrote, but, like, it was a nice write up on how we should be fully progressing forward, he thinks going along that would be a great way to possibly save the fireworks, be a great way to bring more of that, work on that music in the park idea, he thinks that's great. Maybe expand our fishing tournament into a fish fest. There's a lot of cool opportunities that we can take advantage of, right? We have the restaurant. We have the beach. We have the park. We have the 2 actual resorts on the lake. The village has the best part of this little community. Ashworth asked if he had looked into how many properties are Airbnbs? Hutter said he can come up with a list like that if you wanted to look at that too. Ashworth stated that's the big thing. We don't even know how many there are. Sindelar stated that he went on some of the Airbnb sites and tried to book a motel or 1 of those in our village limits. And he found a few in the village, but not that many. Most of them are always outside of our village with a Friendship address. Hutter asked so even though it has a village address that's outside? Sindelar said a lot of these rentals are out in the Delwood area, and Delwood has a Friendship mailing address. So, he had a hard time trying to narrow it down inside village limits because he had to take the address and look up exactly where it was. A smaller footprint. But yet, when it comes up as a Friendship, know, that it does cover a bigger area. Like, some of those generated AI deals could include that to give us some bigger numbers. So, again, it's trying to locate exactly what's in our boundaries to see if there's enough to justify moving forward and then charging all these extra fees. So, there's a little bit more research that we need to gather for that. Hutter stated that ideally, it would be nice and there should be a while, but the long-term rentals, if they were to see an improvement and then improve their property, you make more money on the short-term rental idea anyway. Again, that's long term to get them into that, you know, way of thinking. But any businessman that would look at that and would see that there's a possibility to then make more money, why would you not? Again, he’s been here for 5 years now, and every year his resort does better. He hosts event after event after event. Next year, he has his resort plus cabins on the lake plus the yellow Airbnb booked out for large events, and they're even looking at renting the hall across from us at the restaurant. That's the exact path forward we should be looking at, and he’s doing it whether we make this or not. Right? He brought this up. He dropped it because he’s doing it anyway. But this is a great way for us to work together as a group hosting these events. He’s going to do them whether we make a commission or not. Sindelar said as the you know, the village looks into the making of this as how many are out there, what do you collect, is it worth all the administration part of it? So that's where more information will have to be gathered and just exactly how much in our footprint would be generated and to see if it's gonna be valuable. Ashworth stated that she see Elise is here from Visit Adams County and she knows a lot about this stuff. Sindelar asked if she could state her name? Elise Robinson, and I'm the interim executive director now at Visit Adams County. We had a big transition in July with Megan leaving. I did work there the last year doing marketing, but with everything I learned, I wanted a chance at doing this as well. You know, some things were reall y bad before, so we're just trying to pick up and move forward. Sindelar asked so we can reach out to you for more information? Berry asked when you did your research, how many did you come up with actually in the village proper? Sindelar stated that he came up with at least 2 that were in the village, but his skills on trying to navigate some of these are not the greatest. He feels we need to look up and try to narrow down just how many are in the village and come back to the table with that information. And to get more information from Visit Adams Conty. DISCUSSION ON: 2027 BUDGET ITEMS Sindelar stated that this is just the preliminary start off of what the public works will need from equipment to streets, improvements to that whole list. I believe budget you want information due by? PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE MEETING – Wednesday August 26, 2026– Page 3 Shawback stated probably next month, for sure, if not sooner. We're going start scheduling finance committee meetings, probably at the beginning of October. Because she’s going to get all the information from the state in September about funding that we're going get. So, once she get those numbers kinda plugged in, then we can start going over the expenses. Sindelar said at our next meeting we can bring a lot of that together. Go over the list, and turn it in. Everybody can get their list. We can also go over the equipment list if any part of the snow removal equipment needs repairs or updates, we can go over all that and make sure all that's ready to go. DISCUSSION ON: FUNCTIONAL CLASSIFICATION CHANGES Reuter stated that Pat said there's no action required by the village or the city. They just wanted to let us know, this is what the state is requesting. Waller wanted to know what is functional classification? What's it for? Hassler said that it has to do with the rate of compensation you get back from the State Department of Transportation in terms of highway aids. So, we may change classifications to make it more money for certain classifications and less than for other classifications. So, what you might want to ask the Department of Transportation, whether it's at the state level or at the county level, what is this going to do in terms of more or less income for the village and its street program. I think that’s the bottom line. DISCUSSION AND POSSIBLE ACTION ON: LEAF PICKUP Sindelar asked do we have any information on renting or contacting with anybody for leaf pickup yet? Schultz said just through the city. But they would have to do it. Reuter said that their insurance company says that they can let us rent the equipment from them, but 2 of their guys have to come with. So now you're not just renting the equipment, but you're also paying their wages for the day. Schultz asked if it would be a possibility if we could have people bag them? Then she could pick them up. Sindelar stated that some would. A lot of them won't. Because people a lot of them won't be just because of the volume that they have in the yard is a lot. A couple of them probably filled up a trailer by itself almost. Is the committee okay with moving forward trying to contract with the city, or should we look at other options? Waller stated that we're kinda looking at almost double the price considering the equipment, and then about double the cost for the leaf pickup. Sindelar stated we should get a quote from Property Works just to compare and get some hard numbers from the city. And then also, roughly a timeline, in years past, it was late October, early part of November. We can discuss that at next month’s meeting. DISCUSSION AND POSSIBLE ACTION ON: TORNADO SIREN MAINTENANCES Sindelar said that we had a nonprofit group come in and was checking to about doing the maintenance on our sirens. Klicko said that they did the siren for Big Flats apparently, but when they rewired our siren, it was all solid state, they offered a maintenance contract, I believe, at that time for, like, 400 dollars. But there's really nothing to maintain. I mean, they could come looking at all the boxes again for 4 or 500 dollars. Sindelar stated that this is for free. This is a nonprofit group that goes around and checks the different sirens for communities, and they offered to do inspections free of charge, just parts. Klicko said if they want to do it , he wouldn't want to stop them. He doesn’t think they'll find anything. If anything happens 1st question is gonna be, why didn’t the siren go off? Sindelar asked if committee was okay with moving that forward to the board for final approval or final discussion? Hutter answered with Yeah. It's a good idea. Hassler asked do we know anything about this organization? If they have a website or if they are bonded, insured, etcetera. It just seems to him that somebody sent out a letter saying, hey, I wanna come and look at your sirens he’d like to know a little bit more about them. Sindelar stated that we can ask them about insurance and bonding. UPDATE ON 401 MAIN STREET Hutter thinks we should move forward with his plan and get the inspections done and then follow on how his email lays out to address this as quickly as possible before that lays in the middle of the road. Schultz says she has several phone calls from her this week because she received her letter. The contractor will be coming out the 2nd week of September, and she’s just waiting on him. She understands it's an issue. Sindelar asked if by chance, would she be willing to give you the contractors just to confirm? Schultz says she can find that out. Oberbeck said just in the case that it doesn't turn into another 2 weeks, and then another 2 weeks, etcetera? And then find out all of the available background on set contract. Hassler said she should specify exactly what needs to be done and how it's going to be taken care of. Do we have a list? Mr. Hunter's prepared and provided some background information, but is there a detailed list of what we think needs to be done? PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE MEETING – Wednesday August 26, 2026– Page 4 Ashworth said the roof in front should be the first thing done. Hutter stated that we need to have it inspected . The building inspector and the fir e and that's the next step for us to take. Hassler asked is the major issue the front overhang? It seems to him that that's an immediate consequence. And after that, you'll have to decide if there's more that needs to be done. But it seems to him that the starting point is to take care of the open and obvious problem. Sindelar stated to just reach out to her, see if you can get the contractor's name, number, and then confirm everything. Oberbeck stated that to begin with the porch needs to take off for now, bu t he would suspect that once an inspection is completed, there's going to be a laundry list. But obviously, the 1st and foremost would be safety, which is the primary concern of anybody trying to use the sidewalk. So, safety concern, but amongst an inspection, it's going to be a laundry list of issues. There's no doubt. Hutter stated correct. Yes. I think there's go ing to be a lot. As soon as they actually do an inspection, I think they're going to find reasons to actually look inside, and then it's just going to compound. Hassler stated that remember that in order to do an inspection, you're going to need the landowner's consent. Right? And if the landowner doesn't consent, you're going to have to get a special inspection warrant from the Adams County Circuit Court, and you're going to have to have the village president or Beth do an affidavit that tells the Adams County Circuit Court why we think it is necessary to go inside the building and inspect it. And what is the probable cause that we have based on our view of the exterior to go inside? And he will tell you that when we were involved in the Schneider matter, we submitted an application for the special inspection warrant to actually go inside the house because the property owner had declined our request for an inspection, and the Adams County judge declined our request for a warrant based on the belief that there wasn't sufficient cause to go beyond the front door. Now the reason we were able to finish that project was because the property owner had 2nd thoughts and told our building inspector, yes, you can do an inspection. And as a result of that consent, we got a very, very detailed report. But we would not have gotten that detailed report except for the fact that the property owner said yes because the circuit court for Adams County said, based on what you've pleaded in, your affidavit, which you stated, I don't think there's sufficient cause for me to order the property owner to let you in. So that's where we're at. Oberbeck stated that it took us 8 years to get to that. Hutter said we're just asking for an exterior visual inspection. This is also a commercial property, so it's not the same as a residential. They still have to maintain some certain level of inspection as a commercial. I just wanna start with the visual. I mean, I think if we don't do anything, again, a few feet with how long it been falling apart? This is not a recent thing. This is probably a 10, 20-year problem. Right? We start there. Sindelar said at this point in time, at least Beth can get the contractor, get confirmation for scheduling then mover forward to that point. Oberbeck asked and the contingency on if there's any pushback, what would our contingency be? If you, you know, if you make contact or I’m just worst-case scenario. I just I would rather know. What's the 2nd recourse once you make contact? And maybe our communication ceases, then what would our be our recourse, I guess, would be my question? Hassler stated that it seems to him that everybody who drives by that establishment, that property can see that the front porch, that front overhang needs to be removed or repaired. I don't think there's any question about that. So, it seems to him that if we get the owner and the contractor give us a schedule to remove it or repair it, we will hold them to it. And if they don't, we will then need to examine our options as to whether or not we need to go to court in order to repair it and remove it ourselves or whether or not we can proceed independent of a court order to do it based on some kind of theory that it's an eminent threat to public safety, and we need to take immediate steps to abate it. It would also seem to me that the property owner should probably be in communication with their insurance agent because they've got a problem that needs to be fixed. His understanding is that the property, the zoning of the property, is almost less important than how it's currently being used. And his understanding is that it's just an empty building. It's not being used for anything. Right? It's vacant. He think the starting point is to take care of the open and obvious problem. PUBLIC WORKS DIRECTORS REPORT Schultz stated that 409 Moundview there’s a camper there, and they've been living in it every weekend, all summer long. She did go out and check it. They had sewage running over the bank into the creek. She did call the DNR on that, and he has not got back to her. They have since moved it and put brush over where the sewage was running out, but she did take pictures of that before. And they're going to plan on building, so we gave them an application for a Plan Commission meeting to see if they do get a conditional use permit. And we checked into it. They do have a building permit, but it does expire in October. They're only good for 2 years. She hasn’t found anything on a well permit or anything like that out there , and they're the very last property in the village and our water and sewer does not go to them. But they have water. She has pictures of a hose going to their camper from the shed and they have water. So, they've got something in that shed. Something that's pumped that they're getting water from. The problem is the neighbors actually called us about it because they're cutting the neighbor's trees down, and they never had it surveyed or anything. Berry asked when she contacted the DNR on this? PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE MEETING – Wednesday August 26, 2026– Page 5 Schultz stated that it was last week. Berry said to keep calling because that's a very severe violation. Both the well permit and the sewage, that's very severe that's not good. So, he would keep pushing the DNR. He would maybe even contact Land and Water to get them involved in the county. He would start with Keefer. And maybe then he can get ahold of someone at the DNR better than we can because that's a severe violation. Schultz stated that she would do that. She said she’s kind of at a standstill here on this playground equipment. We did have a lady come from Minnesota from game time equipment. And she told us that there's so many rules and regulations now on everything. You can't have sand anymore. I mean, you could have it, but it's not a good idea because handicapped people obviously can't get through it. Their grant is they match our money for just 1 big piece of equipment and she’s trying to get individual pieces to expand the park. She said basically, it's going to cost the village a lot of money because we gotta have a contractor come in and cut it down about a foot. And then we have to have, bark and all that stuff hauled in. Berry asked if they allow bark now? He thought they had said bark wasn't good either because kids can get splinters off the bark. And so they switched over to little rubber things and he thinks they changed that again. So, it's an ongoing problem. It really is. Sindelar stated that would be another good public works line item just to talk about. Schultz said as for the pond at the park she’s had a lot of contact with the county. The DNR has basically just shut her down on everything. She had Tim Hins come out and look at it, that retention pond at the park. And he said we could dig it out, but then the DNR says we have to have permits for that. They don't want us to do that. The DNR does not want us to do anything with it. So, Tim and Tyler from the county said that maybe we should put, like, a piece of plywood over that the end of the culvert and let the water raise up about 6 inches and take that piece of plywood out and then flush everything out. But the DNR will not let her do that because they said we don't know what's in there. There’re snapping turtles. There’re bullfrogs. There’re fish. You know? So, I said, well, what about planting cat tails in there? You know, because cat tails will spread. They're very evasive, and you wouldn't see the slime and the and stuff. And she can't do that. So, she is at a standstill on that. She doesn’t know what else to do . But on a good note, Tyler did tell her that if she wants to burn that bank she can. He said that would be a good idea to do that every 2 years. He gave her so much information on stuff to do there. Trees to cut, trees not to cut. He said he'd come and help her do that. Oberbeck stated that she needs to be careful on what, and how close to the waterway that would be depending on what kind of concern that would be to the DNR. Schultz said absolutely she would be. Sindelar stated that there’s also a report from the Lake District about the vegetation up along the bank. His memory is a couple years old on that , but he thought it was due to certain vegetation that are used for preventing erosion just based on the location of the waterway. Schultz stated that he did educate her on that too. She has to quit weed whacking right up to the lake. He said if she wants places for people to fish, just weed whack an opening for them, but leave the vegetation. And then he said, you know, like, the regular grass that grows in your yard doesn't have a deep root system. He said if she wants to plant some wildflowers in there or something, but that's expensive. The other thing that they looked at too was when the water comes out of the dam and underneath the road there, and it kinda takes that corner there, b ecause that's in a flood zone, when it does flood, it completely misses that corner and cuts across on the grass there, and it's washing out. There's holes in there that we've stuffed full of gravel just to keep little kids from falling into it. But they said the only thing that we could do with that and, again, the DNR would not help me with a grant for riprap to put in there. They said the only thing that you could do is put riprap in there and fabric but, again, that costs a lot of money. The Discount grocery store, he did get ahold of me the other day and told me to hold off on everything because he's possibly going to be moving to a different building. Christmas lights, she applied for a $25,000 grant to cover electricity. She got an estimate here from RC Electric for almost $19,000 for electricity in 27 pools. So, she applied for the $25,000 grant and only got a grant for $2,500. WRWA came and televised. He had a lot of problems with his camera because he had a $10,000 camera, and we had to take 3 of these empty bottles put on it to float on the water to get it to even take it underneath. And a lot of our manholes are dry, so we couldn't get the camera to go through there. He couldn't televise a lot of them. And he said he could only go 1 way with the flow of water. He couldn't get them to go back the other way. But he said everything that he televised looked good except for 1 spot on Raymond Street. There’re some roots coming down, and he said that's nothing that the jetter will not take care of. He will be coming back next week to give us the flash drive, and he did take a few pictures. Tomorrow in Plover is the water conference that they have every year, and she will be going to that. It’s worth 6 credits, so she'll have her credits for the next 2 years. PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE MEETING – Wednesday August 26, 2026– Page 6 Also, WRWA has agreed to do a 10-year assessment plan for us. What that is, h e comes in and he assesses everything. He would come, assess the equipment, it would be something that we could use for our budget. Say within 2 years, we're looking at buying a new snowplow. He would look at all of our equipment. He would look at our lift stations and basically appraise them and tell us when we would need to start putting money away for that. He's going to do it for free. Part of his job, he basically only gets 3 people that he can do this for. And we would be 1 of the 3. She thinks it's a really nice thing that he would be doing. She got an email today about service line investigation. She talked to Jacobs earlier this year about our service lines. And when she did our assessment for the DNR, we have a lot of unknown service lines, which means that we don't know if they're lead or if they're plastic or what they are. So, therefore, she has to assume that they are lead, so it makes things a lot more difficult with the DNR. They came up with this thing this year. The DNR is doing a grant. They will hire someone to come in and do like, they will say they'll take Grand Street, and they'll dig a couple of potholes. They'll check out, you know, go around 6 feet, find the waterline coming in, and they'll look at that, and only do it from the street. So, the rest of it is homeowners, usually, you can, like, if you go in to change a meter, you can usually, a lot of times, see what kind of pipe they have coming out to their meter. These guys don't charge us anything. In 2037, the DNR is going to change it so that nobody can have unknowns. If it's lead, they have to be replaced. So, they'll come in and they'll dig, like, say, 5 different holes, and then they'll go by that. They won't dig a hole in everybody's yard. So if we've got so far, we've got 5 different plastics, you know, PVC pipe, then they're going to assume that that whole block is going to be PVC. So, it really narrow our lead and copper because right now, we have between between 80 and 90 unknowns. It’s free. It's no charge to us whatsoever. If in 2037 that we have to do it, we have to switch over everything, then it's going to be on us. Oberbeck stated that honestly, we should do our best to not let somebody inherit something like that. If we can get ahead of it, I think that's the best, in my opinion. Schultz said that she can’t guarantee it. We will be on a list, and they will let us know. The DNR will pick and choose who. But the guy did tell her that he says we are going to start with smaller municipalities over bigger cities. Oberbeck stated we would be able to get into that threshold considering the age of the village and the size of the population. She loaded up all the scrap in the cold storage, and all of that is on the brush truck right now. She just has a grill out back that she’s going to take the loader and put in there. She’s going to cut out the light poles and haul them. Buckys said you can just bring everything, dump it in a pile, we'll pick through it, and we'll send you a check. The only thing that he asks of us is a letter saying that because there's a lot of signs in there. He just wants a letter saying that, you know, he didn't steal these from Preston Township or something. You know, he got them from us. Adjournment Motion by Waller, second Hutter to adjourn the meeting, motion carried. Meeting ended at 6:00 p.m. ___________________________________ Rebecca Reuter Village Clerk