Village Board — Minutes

VILLAGE BOARD MEETING – January 5, 2026, PAGE 1 The Friendship Village Board meeting was called to order followed by the Pledge of Allegiance by all present. President Jerry Sonnenberg called the meeting to order and roll call was taken. Present were Trustees Brad Oberbeck, Ernie Klicko, Nadine Ashworth , Melvin Waller, Bob Berry, Jason Pierce and President S onnenberg. Also present were Attorney Joseph Hasler, Public Works Director -Beth Schultz, Treasurer Sandy Shawback and Clerk Rebecca Reuter. APPROVAL OF MINUTES MOTION by Berry, second by Waller to approve December1st, 2025, Village Board minutes, motion carried. TREASURER REPORT General Water Sewer November 1, 2025, Balance 112,811.09 328,245.22 44,479.96 November Receipts 191,059.39 30,269.09 5,981.83 November Disbursements 51,086.73 22,324.43 9,965.22 November 30, 2025, Balance 252,783.75 336,189.88 40,496.57 LGIP #1 TIF $1,060,567.30 – LGIP #9 ARPA $0. 45 – Capital Project Checking $34,222.37 - Building Fund $ 70,000.00 – Money Market $1,646.91 – CDBG Working Fund $13,857.48 - LGIP #6 Park/Beach $4 5,851.04 – Tax Checking $ 11,968.03 – TIF Checking $95.00 -Street Equipment Fund $ 43,416.50 – Court Order Proceeds $3,808.03 – Water LGIP #3 Special Redemption Fund $2 28,744.19 - LGIP #4 Water Replacement Fund $3 94,833.87 – LGIP #8 Water Debt Reserve Fund $ 80,252.84 – Sewer LGIP#2 Special Redemption Fund $ 87,506.25 - LGIP#5 Sewer Replacement Fund $56,520.35 – LGIP#7 Sewer Debt Reserve Fund $65,249.20 MOTION by Ashworth, second by Klicko to approve treasurer report, motion carried. PAYING OF BILLS MOTION by Klicko, second by Oberbeck to approve December vouchers 27977 - 28029 in the amount of $93,513.56, motion carried. CITIZEN INPUT Nicole DeJoris – stated that she is a business owner in town delivering as an Amazon hub and is also on the Chamber. She really enjoyed having the Village open up the light pole decorating contest. From a business perspective, she would like to know if the Village would consider doing it next year and if we could tack on a monetary sponsorship and turn it into a contest? She knows it’s early in the year, but it’s just something for us to think about. ROPORT FROM COUNTY REPRESENTATIVE RICK PEASE Not in attendance UPDATE FROM PSC ON PUBLIC HEARING Reuter stated that we have heard from the PSC, and they are looking at having our Public Hearing in early February for our water rate study. They also sent over a copy of the draft report for the water rate study. The final report won’t come to us until after our public hearing. The last time we received a conventional water rate study was back in 2010. During the public hearing the PSC will talk about our water rates, and the rates for the PFP, including the percentage increase. After the public hearing and the final decision from the PSC rates are typically increased within 90 days. The public hearing will be all online. You will be able to zoom in, or find it live on their YouTube page. Berry stated he would like to add that if you were to look at average of communities our size, we are below average of what we are charging customers for water. Even after this rate increase we are going to be sitting on the lower to middle range of what communities are charging. PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE REPORT BY CHAIRMAN BERRY a. Citizen Input VILLAGE BOARD MEETING – January 5, 2026, PAGE 2 The meeting started out with Berry apologizing to Director Schultz and her worker Kiera. He kind a dropped the ball. He didn’t realize that they had never worked a winter here yet, and they had no idea how we wanted things plowed or how Main Street normally gets plowed . He went out with Public Works the next mor ning and drove all around the Village and he explained how Main Street shou ld be done, where snow can get placed. He feels they are doing a fabulous job now. After receiving a few calls after the first 2 snowstorms he realized that they had never been taught how the Village does Main Street or anything with snow. So, kudos to them for jumping in there and getting things done. b. Discussion & Possible Action on: Volleyball nets at Friendship Park It has been talked about at a few meetings, and Pre sident Sonnenberg has been in contact with the American Legion , because they are thinking about getting rid of their volleyball nets, so we may be able to work with them to get their nets. They will be working on that through the winter and into the spring. c. Discussion & Ideas on Code Enforcement They had a brief discussion on code enforcement. Sheriff Brent York has reached out to Sonnenberg and a few Board members asking why we haven’t ta lked to him, so a meeting will be set up to do that. We will be talking about it more at Public Works and once they have a consensus on how we might want to do things the n they will bring a recommendation to the Board and go forward from that point. Berry stated that we have all these ordinances and we have to be able to do something with them. d. Adams County M.I.S. minutes The Village did receive the LRIP from the county this year. That was just under $10,000. We don’t have to spend it in a hurry so we can bank it and hopefully add to it and start fixing up some of our streets. e. Discussion & Possible Action on: Water Testing at Friendship Lake The Village board looked over the Memorandum of Understanding between Adams County Government and the Village of Friendship . It is the recommendation of the Public Works Committee to approve the memorandum, and for the Village of Friendship to start paying for water testing at the beach. Hasler stated that he felt comfortable with the wording in the contract. Ashworth asked if Berry could explain the contract a little more. Berry stated that a total of 8 samples will be collected by Adams County and tested by Wood County Health Department for a total of $240. We would be responsible when test results come back at just above normal or high to get the notice out. The dates the water will be tested are May 19 th, June 2 nd, June 16th, June 30 th, July 14 th, July 28 th, August 1 1th and August 25 th unless weat her or other unfavorable conditions necessit ate deviation. He feels it’s a necessary thing for us to do. MOTION by Berry , se cond by Waller to sign the Memorandum of Understanding with Adams County and get water testing started this spring, motion carried. Reuter will forward results to Ashworth to take to the Friendship Lake District . f. Discussion on Wastewater Comprehensive Facility Master Plan for City of Adams The City of Adams will be updating the wastewater plant. Berry stated that when he worked for the City of Adams, he used to work at the treatment plant, and it needs to be updated. It’s going to increase sewer rates for them, and that means rate increases for us. Sewer rates are not mandated by the PSC. So, we can raise rates whenever we want to whatever we want. But we are going to have to wait to see what the city does and then act accordingly and raise our rates, so we aren’t in the red quite so much. It’s not going to be pretty especially with water rate increases but at the same time as with water, if you look at averages at other municipalities we are on the lower side to the middle range. Hopefully we don’t have to go up to high. But we will be at the mercy of the city for some of that. The city has some really good ideas out there for what they want to do to make changes at the wastewater plant. It will help improve things for both the city and the economy. Ashworth stated that she remembers being at that meeting and them talking about how as a Board we should think about rising out rates now instead of waiting. VILLAGE BOARD MEETING – January 5, 2026, PAGE 3 Reuter stated that right now we are where we should be with them, and the City has said they will keep us in the loop and let us know when they plan on raising theirs so that we can act accordingly. Berry stated that they will also have more public hearings relating to this topic and he plans on attending them. g. Public Works Directors Report Schultz stated that Villa Pines water meter isn’t working. It hasn’t been replaced since the building was built in the 1970’s. She has a quote from Midwest meters for a little over $5,000 to replace that meter. That is just for the meter , not including installation. She would like to get approval to replace the meter. MOTION by Berry, second by Klicko to get a new water meter for Villa Pines, motion carried. Schultz stated that she received a phone call from an attorney the other day asking about the PFAS. There’s a guy that was going to put in a $5,000 water softener to eliminate the PFAS. She told him that we get our water from the City of Adams and it is tested for PFAS all the time. She also told him that the city has spent millions of dollars on building a new filtration building for the water. And we always send out a letter with the water bills. She doesn’t really know what else to do about that. Berry stated that she should direct him to the city water department because that is who we buy our water from. Schultz said other than that she would just ask everyone to be patient with them as they learn to do the snow removal. Waller asked how it went with Miller and Bradford and if they fixed the couplers? Schultz stated that they quoted her almost $300 per coupler . He came last Monday. He fixed the female end of the electric , so that they can now use the box plow. But he put a metal bracket on that holds it in there, it’s just dangling there and he said we will have to weld that on there. Matt’s a welder , so that’s a good job for him to do next time he comes in. They haven’t done anything with the couplers because she wants to ask Matt first if he has any suggestions that we can do cheaper. Because she feels that Miller and Bradford’s price is high. Berry stated that the other thing that Public Works is doing is we are still trying to find a truck to replace the flat bed truck we’ve got. The truck runs great , but there’s no heat and you can’t get parts for it anymore. WRWA has been a real help to our Public Works, helping them figure everything out. WRWA talked to them about the water sewer conference that they put on every year. When that time comes, he’s going to make the recommendation that we send both of them to the conference for that week. They will get so much information and knowledge from the conference. They have classes and it’s normally a week long. This year it is in Green Bay. FRIENDSHIP LAKE DISTRICT REPORT BY TRUSTEE ASHWORTH Ashworth stated that they didn’t have a meeting. Next meeting will be in April. FIRE DISTRICT REPORT BY TRUSTEE KLICKO Klicko stated they had 13 calls last month. Everything is running smoothly. Mid-State is going to donate the water mapping prop to set up at the training center . It’s worth about $15,000. They were going to make a portable trailer out of it, but since they have the training center here, they’re going to put it in that. They’ve put a lot of money into that training center. That will bring a lot of Firefighters to town. Berry asked i f the Fire Chief and the officers are still volunteers? He knows at one time there was talk of making at least the Chief a paid position. Klicko stated that yes, they have applied for a safer grant for that. It is still pending. It was delayed during the government shutdown. That would be funding for the Chief. It’s a matching grant, so it would mean additional funding from the district . The grant would be for 3 years, and after that the district would have to pick up the cost. They would like eventually to have those 3 positions paid. The Chief would quiet his other job in Middelton to come here and work fulltime. VILLAGE BOARD MEETING – January 5, 2026, PAGE 4 AMBULANCE COMMITTEE REPORT BY PRESIDENT SONNENBERG Sonnenberg stated they had a meeting on the 22nd of December. There was an item on the agenda that they sent back to all the municipalities that are on the ambulance committee. As part o f the contract agreement that we and the other mu nicipalities have with Lifestar there is $100,000 that is set aside for liability purposes from Lifestar. The attorneys that were holding the money sold their practice, and the new a ttorneys don’t want the responsibility of monitoring the fund. He can’t believe it’s really that much to do. So Lifestar is giving us two choices to bring back and get feed back from our Boards, and then when we meet in January, we will decide what we want to do. 1) To keep the $100,000 on file somewhere and just find a new person to keep the fund. 2) To give Lifestar back the $100,000 and not have the funds. Hasler asked why they don’t just designate one of the municipalities as the custodian? Berry asked where the $100,000 is sitting? Is it in a bank, or a CD? Sonnenberg doesn’t know Reuter stated that it’s there to protect us, not them. Klicko stated that he feels they should keep it. It shouldn’t be that hard to find an administrator. Hasler asked if that was something that Reuter could do. All it is, is looking at a bank statement once a month and making sure the money is there. Hasler asked Sonnenberg if the law firm has been charging anything to be the custodian, as the over seer of the fund. Hasler feels it’s something we would want to keep. He doesn’t want to add to the burden of the Clerk or the Treasurer but if the money is there and it’s just a matter of making sure that on a monthly basis the bank statement is received that shows it’s still there , that shouldn’t be a major administrative burden. Berry asked what the consensus of the Committee was? Sonnenberg stated that at the beginning of the meeting they started out by saying what he just said, they took a vote and it we 6-yes/1-no, Sonnenberg being the no. He talked to them trying to convince them that this $100,000 was for us, and that we shouldn’t be giving it up. Why give it back to them? We signed a 5-year deal, but the next 2 years are up for grabs where the rates can change. He felt he was just talking his head off, and then all of a sudden someone behind him said he was right. So, they took another vote to rescind the past vote. And the person who made the motion, and second the motion did the same to rescind their motion’s. That’s when they decided to take it back to the municipalities and ask everybody. Are we in favor of putting the money in an account and checking it once a month? Klicko stated that he would be ok with offering our services for it. Sonnenberg asked should he recommend that we keep the $100,000 and offer to be the administrator of that? MOTION by Berry, second by Klicko to keep the $100,000 and offer our services as the admin part of that, motion carried. CONSIDERATION & ACTION ON THE APPROVAL OF TAXICAB LICENSE MOTION by Berry, second by Klicko to approve Taxicab License’s for Adams Friendship Cab Company, LLC, motion carried. CORRESPONDENCE Letter from PSC SET AGENDA ITEMS FOR FEBRUARY 2ND MEETING Announce when PSC public hearing is Being of no further business to come before the board, MOTION by Berry, second by Waller to adjourn, motion carried. Meeting ended at 6:46 __________________________________________ Rebecca Reuter Village Clerk