Public Works — Minutes

VILLAGE OF FRIENDSHIP PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE MEETING – Wednesday, July 23, 2025– Page 1 The Public Works Committee meeting was called to order at 5:00 p.m. in the Municipal Building. In attendance were President Jerry Sonnenberg, Chairman Bob Berry, committee members Jason Pierce and Melvin Waller; also in attendance was Public Works Director Beth Schultz, Attorney Joseph Hasler, Trustee Ernie Klicko, Treasure Sandy Shawback, and Clerk Rebecca Reuter. The agenda for the meeting was: 1} Roll Call 2} Approve meeting minutes from June 25th, 2025 3} Citizen input 4} Discuss food trucks 5} Discuss public and handicap parking 6} Discuss No Fishing signs at the beach 7} Discuss boat wash area by the boat launch 8} Discuss having a raft at the beach 9} Discuss stormwater infiltration into the lake and creek downstream 10} Discuss Village equipment and vehicles 11} Discuss Christmas decorations and brackets 12} Discuss 2026 budget for Public Works 13} Adjournment A majority of the Village Board may be present but no Board action is contemplated. Approval of June 25th, 2025, Minutes Motion by Waller, second by Pierce to approve June 25th, 2025, Public Works Minutes, motion carried. Before starting citizen input Berry let those in attendance know that he knows that food trucks are a very heated issue right now, but the Village has never considered banning food trucks in any way, shape, or form. This all came about because a citizen brought forward to us that they would like to see us regulate the food trucks. The Village has never talked about wanting to ban them in anyway. If you would like to speak for citizen input, you’ll have 3 minutes to speak. He wants to keep this meeting civil, if it gets out of hand, he’s going to stop the meeting and get everybody out, he wants that known right off the bat. If you want to speak raise your hand, he’ll call you up and you’re going to give your name and address, so we know who you are. If the person before you has spoken about the exact same thing that you want to talk about, then you don’t need to. We don’t need to hear the same thing from 100 different people. The Committee heard it the first time. Citizen Input Cindy Schlichting – stated that she’s a lifelong resident of both Adams & Juneau Counties. She can understand the different sides of this from the clerical side and the government side. She was a city treasurer for many years. She ran and operated a brick-and-mortar restaurant for many years. Now she helps her son and daughter-in-law with the pig pen. She does all the books. She can understand that everybody’s worried about taxes and where they are going. She says that they pay sales tax to Adams County every time they are in Adams County. They don’t do some of the things that brick-and-mortar restaurants do, but they do some of them. They have to get the same licenses. The same permits. They have to go through the department of health. They have annual fire inspections. They have a home base as well as a food truck that they need to maintain. The one downfall of having a food truck that brick- and-mortars don’t have is that it’s a gamble every time they go out. They don’t know if the area is going to support them or if they will have business. If you are a brick-and-mortar restaurant then they know your location. If they want to come and use your establishment for eating or drinking, they know you’re there. One of the things that really upset her that she heard is that the food trucks take your money and run. She stated that they won’t get rich doing what they are doing, but that no one will leave his truck hungry. She’s seen him give away food when people’s credit cards were denied, she seen him help special people when they come there and only have $4.00 to spend, and he gives them a card that says whenever you see this pink truck you show us this card, and you can eat for free. She knows he helps with the local areas for prom. She knows when someone has a family death, he’s the first one there offering to provide food at his cost. He does a veteran’s meal twice a year for homeless veterans and for the veterans in our area. He doesn’t do it at cost anymore; he pays for everything. He says it’s the least we can do for our veterans. Jessica Schwabe – she stated that food trucks bring options. She doesn’t like just doing fast food. Rather PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE MEETING – Wednesday, July 23, 2025– Page 2 than imposing on food trucks or any of the small business in town…she’s not sure if the Village of Friendship is already acting on it but main street offers grants that help with revitalization of our town, to bring foot traffic here because that is important. We live in a very unique area where you have two towns boxed in by a railroad and two flea markets on both sides. It should all be cohesive, not pitting one against another. Nicole DeJoris – she stated that she is a customer of both Last Call and Main Street Mercantile. She’s enjoyed positive conversations with both owners. Each of these businesses adds something unique to our community and she values them both. That’s why she’s surprised, and disappointed to hear that Last Call is taking issue with the weekly food trucks. Let’s be clear these businesses are not competitors. Last Call is a bar and eatery, and mercantile is a retail shop. Angie hosting a food truck for a few hours once a week is not a threat to a brick-and-mortar bar or restaurant. In fact, research and common-sense show that events like these bring people into town, creating opportunities for all businesses. She heard there is a problem with garbage being left behind, as someone who eats at these trucks she takes this personally. If someone suggests food truck customers leave trash around, then they are suggesting that her along with other respectful community members are leaving garbage behind. That is simply not the case. Rosemary, who owns the property, is a proud and responsible business owner. And the food truck owners themselves take pride in cleanliness and their presentation. Food trucks add variety to our community. They bring people in and start conversions, and they provide variety and excitement. A weekly food truck event is not competition, it’s community building. Instead of viewing this as a threat she believes we should view it as a shared opportunity, for example Last Call could run drink specials during food truck hours to benefit from the increased foot traffic. Restricting food trucks or targeting Main Street Mercantile sends the wrong message that Adams-Friendship is closed to creativity and new ideas. This is not who we are, our town thrives when small businesses work together not when they try to tare each other down. She urges this committee to reject any attempt to restrict these events and instead support polices that show all business brick-and-mortar, and mobile businesses alike are to succeed and grow. Chad Schlichting – He stated his big thing is that food trucks 9 times out of 10 get asked to come. They are not out soliciting. They are not out there asking if they can come. If they do that it is for festivals, and fairs, things like that. In fact, he is going to Dodgeville to the hospital because they called because their lunchroom is getting reconstructed. They wanted to bring in an option for the people, doctors, nurses so they’re bringing in food trucks. Not only him , but they’re doing this for 6 months. And they are paying X amount they are giving to the residents, the patients and doctors that wat they can eat because the prices are going to be a little bit higher than what will be in the cafeteria. They are doing that and asking us to help. We aren’t a thorn in people’s side. We’re here because we’re asked. He’s never going to push himself on anybody. We’re not bad people. People think that we are. They think that we are this Robin Hood coming into town and then leaving, far from it. His stuff, he looked today his brisket to sell went up to $3.00 a pound. He’s not going to jack up the prices, he is going to find an alternative that’s just as good to keep his prices low so people can come to the truck. It’s not about getting rich. He’s never going to get rich. It’s about putting in smiles and the love going into this food. He did this because of his grandma, and to spend time with his parents because for 26 years he drove a truck. He didn’t see his boy grow up. He does now, and he’s proud that he’s a cop. He gets to spend time with his parents, because of this job. If people want to take that from me, that’s not fair. Life isn’t fair, but to come in and cut someone off at the knees because you feel it’s right, is wrong, it’s wrong on so many levels. We all should just get along. Discuss food trucks Berry asked for comments from the Committee on this point. Waller stated that all the food trucks coming in are compiling from what he understands with all the regulations. Berry stated that the City of Adams and other towns have permits that they charge. Most of them are like $15.00 a year. We can also charge soda and water licenses that is $5.00. Should we do that? That way we are in compliance with the other towns and cities in the area that do it. His personal opinion is no; we’re not going to ban food trucks. He believes they are a benefit to this community. They serve different food than what our restaurants and bars serve, and he does think they do help bring more people in. He thinks we should do a permit fee for the food trucks and soda/water license. Pierce stated that he feels the same way. He doesn’t want to ban them. But maybe a small permit fee. Chad from the pig pen then said that permits for food truck range anywhere from $28.00 - $100.00. That’s what he pays every year starting January 1st through January 1st. Berry stated that the research they did was about $20.00 for permits a year including water/soda because even if you’re not going to sell water you still have to have it on the truck. MOTION by Berry, second by Pierce to recommend to the Village Board that we update our ordinance to PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE MEETING – Wednesday, July 23, 2025– Page 3 charge and set up a food truck vender permit license of $15.00 a year, along with charging a water and soda license at $5.00 a year, motion carried. Discuss public and handicap parking Berry stated in the research that we’ve done we have already found Main Street already has a 2-hour parking limit; we just need to put signs up there. As for handicap parking, he was able to find and rea d state statute 346.503 “there must be one handicap space if there’s 26-49 spaces”, we don’t have the much on any of the side streets. Reading further down “if the number of parking spaces reserved are at least 4 but less than 20 at least one of these reserved parking shall have access aisle immediately adjacent to the parking space to provide entry to and exit from vehicle by person with physical disabilities”. So, what we need to do is as part of our ordinance is designate one spot with that egress for them to get in, and we’ll put some signs up. We as a municipality do that all the time, it’s an easy fix. He stated that with the Discount Grocery store there we could put 1 handicap parking there and put up 2 -hour parking so that people can’t park there for the whole day . We do have some of the other streets in town that do have parking restrictions on them, 2 nd Street we don’t right now so that’s what we will be doing is probably update our ordinance to make 2nd Street from the alleyway down 2-hour parking, and make sure we have at least one of those spots as handicap parking. Same with on Main Street, there are no handicap accessible parking spots on Main Street. We need to look into that and get at least one if not two on each side on Main Street. Nicole Gulrud asked as a business owner on Main Street if we are going to start enforcing 2-hour parking on Main Street where are her and her employee supposed to park? Berry stated that the Village will have to work with her to try to figure that out. He told her that she could park across the street on the west side because that doesn’t have the 2-hour parking. Gulrud asked if they could turn their green space next to the building into parking? Berry stated that it is considered a state HWY so you’re dealing with the state and the DOT, he droughts very much that they are going to let her do that just because it’s a state HWY. MOTION by Waller, second by Pierce to recommend to the Village Board to limit parking to 2-hour on East 2nd Street, and put in handicap parking, motion carried. Discuss No Fishing signs at the beach Berry stated that this was brought to us by the Friendship Lake District. They would like to see “No Fishing” signs up so nobody can fish in the swimming area, he doesn’t have a problem with that whatsoever. MOTION by Berry, second by Pierce to recommend to the Village Board to put up “No Fishing” signs at the beach that says no fishing in the swimming area, motion carried. The Village will look into whether we are paying for that, or if the Lake District is going to pay for it. Discuss boat wash area by the boat launch Berry stated that we aren’t going to come up with anything tonight , they need to do more research on what’s out there. 1) It has to have water to it. 2) You’ll have to have some electricity. He’s been to a lot of different boat launches and some have them, and some don’t. Some are portable units that you can pump out of the lake, but you still have to power it somehow. He suggests we table it for now until it can be looked into more , see what’s available for us out there . We also need to see who’s going to pay for it. There are probably some grants out there through the DNR. Discuss having a raft at the beach Berry stated that anyone who’s been around any length of time knows there used to be one down there. The problem was kids wrecked it. You have to take it out every fall and put it back in every spring. And where are we going to put it. He likes the idea of it. Pierce stated that he thinks it’s too much of a liability. Berry stated that there is a Wisconsin State Statute 895.52 that says we are indemnified from the liability. Same thing with our parks, if someone is walking and trips and stumbles over a rock are they going to try to sue us, because they can’t. Pierce can’t recall seeing one at any of the places that he’s been recently. Berry hasn’t seen one at a public beach in a long time. They try to hit up different lakes every weekend that he doesn’t have to work in the area, and he has never seen a raft at a public beach. Sonnenberg stated that in statute 895.52 it’s a recreational indemnity statute stating, “generally no liability”, so generally means what? Hasler stated that generally means that the reason you don’t see many of these rafts anyplace is because even though there’s a statute that provides protection, nobody wants to be on the other side of a lawsuit where they would have to invoke the protection of the statute. He thinks even if we find that we want to do a raft we might find it difficult to find anybody that even makes rafts and provides them in this setting PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE MEETING – Wednesday, July 23, 2025– Page 4 because no manufacturer wants this kind of liability. MOTION by Pierce, second by Waller to recommend to the Village Board not put a raft on Friendship Lake, motion carried. Discuss stormwater infiltration into the lake and creek downstream Berry stated that he has not had the time to do more research into this. He thinks they need to talk with the DNR and see if they have any options for us to help prevent it from hap pening. The other thing is we could do some testing. Or we could get with Land and Water to see what they can come up with. He knows that the Lake District feels that all the stormwater is going into the lake , but it isn’t. A lot of it is going downstream and the other 2 spots where we have storm drains are back in the slough and the flow coming through there doesn’t head into the main body of the lake, it follows the channel, and it goes through the dam and downstream. He doesn’t feel that is doing a whole lot to the body of the lake. Berry asked Reesa Evens (the reporter from the newspaper) what her take was on all of this since she used to work for Land and Water? Evens replied that some of the storm drains end up in the river. Thers more problems as far as the aquatic plant growth. A lot of it has to do with the biology of a man-made lake. You’re interfering with the water flow, so as soon as the water flow slows down it starts dropping things like nutrients and stuff. Some of it has to do with that. Anything that’s not attached can be removed by anybody; you do not need a permit. So, if you wanted to move floaters or algae those aren’t attached. Some lakes will get someone with a boat, and they just skim it off and that reduces it but you’re not likely to get rid of it entirely. Berry asked if there is anything that we as a village municipality can do to help prevent stuff going down the storm drains into the lake? Evens stead that there’s likely more run off from the land around the lakes and that’s the problem. Studies have shown that having buffers near the lake and the land interface does more to keep things out of the lake than anything else. That’s why buffers are a law, but nobody ever enforces it. All the studies they’ve done show that if the right things are there then there’s more infiltration there, you can even put plants in there that will absorb some of this stuff and you can reduce the amount of stuff in the lake. As soon as you reduce the nutrients in the lake you are reducing the possible growth of plants . Her paperwork for boat washing stations should still be at Land and Water. It would need to be updated, but it should still be there. It could give us a place to start. Discuss Village equipment and vehicles Schultz stated that we got the new truck back and it’s running good as new. The plan is to put the equipment out front for people to look at. Put an ad in the paper stating that it’s being sold as it is, and we have the right to refuse anything if we want to. Discuss Christmas decorations and brackets Berry stated that the decorations we have are for the old light poles. He wonders if we could get brackets to retrofit the Christmas writhes to fit on the new poles. Schultz stated that she doesn’t know where we stand on how much we want to spend on them. She and Sonnenberg looked at some and it was going to be over ten grand for the same number of poles as were decorated before. Waller pointed out that our new poles have no power outlets. Berry stated there’s a work around for that. You would have to have an electrician come in and at the base you could get into the wiring and the election could put in some outlets. But that wouldn’t be cheap to do that. He thinks for this year we need to do some more research and down the line and maybe put something in the budget so that we have some money to do that. Waller stated that maybe we should look at decorations that aren’t lit up. Reuter asked the Committee if they remembered when we first got the old light poles? The village had a contest where each family could adopt a light pole and decorate the light pole. It was a lot of fun. Maybe that would be an option until we get decorations. Discuss 2026 budget for Public Works Berry thinks that what we are looking at is to keep the amount of money they asked for last year . They probably will need more in the equipment as much as we can because we still need vehicles. He asked Schultz if she needs any tools or anything that is going to be a higher priced item that she would like to get in the budget to purchase it in the next year ? What she’s seen so far at the park, beach How do you think things are looking? Schultz stated that she really doesn’t have anything right now that she can think of. Everything seems to be her already. Berry thinks the two areas that they need to think about our vehicles and equipment, and our roads. Park PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE MEETING – Wednesday, July 23, 2025– Page 5 Street and Hillwood Lane are the worst roads in the village right now. We need to start putting money away to replace our roads. We have some crack filling coming up on a few roads. Those are the two budget items that he feels we need to add to. Reuter stated that there is a Park Street fund, but it only has $797.00 Sonnenberg asked what we had left in the equipment fund. Shawback answered that we have $43,416.00 left in the equipment fund after buying the new truck. Schutz stated that this year we should be eligible for the LRIP, we can use that to fix a road. Berry asked what Public Works put in the equipment fund last year? Shawback replied that it was $15,000.00. Berry would like to see at least $15,000.00 put back into the equipment fund, and $5,000.00 into the Park Street fund or whatever we can afford to put into that. He also would like it to change the name from the Park Street fund to road reconstruction fund , that way it can be used for other purposes. Right now, if it says Park Street that’s all it can be used for. Those are the two main numbers that he would like to see happen. Pierce stated that for the last 5 years they’ve been talking about replacing the 40-year-old generator in the shop. Reuter mentioned that FEMA has a grant right now for municipalities for generators. She will look into it. Berry would like to see Schultz make a wish list of things she would like on the budget. He would like it to be a list of things we really need, and then a list of wants as well. Sonnenberg asks Shawback if she could get them a schedule of what she wants by what date. Because we really want to make sure that we get the budget done early so we aren’t running around at the end of the year. Schults stated that we should probably start budgeting for the removal of trees on Park Street and at the park. If one of those big trees goes down at the park it’s going to cost us a lot on money. Adjournment Motion by Waller, second Pierce to adjourn the meeting, motion carried. Meeting ended at 6:04 ___________________________________ Rebecca Reuter Village Clerk