Village Board — Minutes

VILLAGE PUBLIC HEARING & BOARD MEETING DECEMBER 2, 2024 The Public Hearing was called to order at 6:0 0 p.m. in the Municipal Building. On roll call were President Antone (Tony) Sindelar, Trustees Jerry Sonnenberg, Ernie Klicko, Brad Oberbeck, Jason Pierce, Bob Berry, and Mel vin Waller. Attorney Flanagan, Public Works Director-Brent Frank, Clerk/Treasurer Lori Hustad, Deputy Clerk/Treasurer Rebecca Reuter. Citizen Roberta Sindelar, Chuck Spargo & Reporter Reesa Evans were also present. President Sindelar turned the Public Hearing over to Attorney Flanagan to run. Flanagan stated he would open the Public Hearing at 6:00 p.m. to consider the proposed 2025 budget. Prior to commencing with any overview, questions, or statements from the public he reviewed that the statutory notice requirements had been met. Notice of Public Hearing was published November 20, 2024. Additionally, copies of the proposed 202 5 budget have been on file and open for public inspection in the Clerk’s office . Hustad gave a brief overview of the 202 5 budget. She stated that the budget was a balanced budget meaning that the revenues and expenses balance and was under the levy limit. The revised State allowed budget is $552,333.00. Attorney Flanagan asked for any final questions or comments. Mr. Chuck Spargo stated that he appreciates the modifications that were made, he wanted to make one other point that wouldn’t have a bearing on any change to the budget tonight but just for future consideration . He has spent 40 years working at electric utilities, the last 10 or 15 he was heavily involved with finance, especially with setting the rates. For the last 10 years he has also been on the Mid-State Collage directors where he served as the treasurer and chair of the finance committee . He stated that it’s been a long time since he's been on the Village Board probably 20 or 25 years so he’s not as familiar with the municipal finance as he is with the school finance, but he knows that school districts are limited in terms of how much they can raise our taxes, and that was his concern with the Village. But also, the amount that we have in re serves. For school districts it’s frowned upon if your reserves are anywhere upside the range of 20 -33%, he believes. And he noticed that the Village has a significant amount of reserves . And he’s not suggesting that we use that to reduce the amount of taxes, because that could put us in trouble. What he is suggesting is in the future the Village spend down some of that money. He knows school districts, and the UW – Madison was punished for 10 years because their reserves were too high. He doesn’t know if municipalities will ever get to the position of being punished for having reserves that are too high. But he would suggest that the Village would consider using some of those for Village purposes. His advice is when you’re doing big capital projects like roads, or sewer or something like that, that it’s best to borrow the money. Because the people benefiting from that investment are the people paying for it over that long period of time. If you spend down your reserves to pay for something like a capital project that could last 20 -30 years, then people that you’ve collected the taxes from the last 30 years are the ones paying for that, not the people in the future who will benefit. He also knows that the City of Adams has had to make substantial investments in their water treatment process to get rid of PFOS that benefits us all. He’s just wondering if the Village could talk to the city and ask them if we make a contribution in lieu of taxes or in lieu of the water incre ase that we just saw, would you be willing to offset the water bill that you are passing on to the Village . We could benefit the people in the future by paying for th e PFAS enhancement. Attorney Flanagan asked if there were any further questions for the proposed 2025 budget. Hearing none he closed the Public Hearing at 6:09. VILLAGE BOARD MEETING – December 2ND , 2023, PAGE 1 The Friendship Village Board meeting was called to order followed by the Pledge of Allegiance by all present. President Tony Sindelar called the meeting to order and roll call was taken. Present were Trustees Brad Oberbeck, Ernie Klicko, Jason Pierce, Jerry Sonnenberg, Melvin Waller, Bob Berry, and President Sindelar. Also present were Public Works Director Brent Frank, Attorney Flanagan, Clerk/Treasurer Lori Hustad, and Deputy Clerk/Treasurer Rebecca Reuter. APPROVAL OF NOVEMBER 11TH MINUTES MOTION by Berry, second by Sonnenberg to approve the November 11th, 2024, Village Board minutes, motion carried. TREASURER REPORT Not available VILLAGE BOARD MEETING – December 2ND , 2023, PAGE 2 PAYING OF BILLS MOTION by Klicko, second by Oberbeck to approve November vouchers in the amount of $40,971.76. Motion carried. November vouchers 27404 – 27437, Motion carried. CITIZEN INPUT No citizen input ROPORT FROM COUNTY REPRESENTATIVE RICK PEASE Was not in attendance SET DATE TO HOLD THE VILLAGE CAUCUS MOTION by Klicko, second by Berry to hold the Village Caucus on January 6th at 6:00 p.m. prior to the Village Board meeting, motion carried. APPOINT ELECTION INSPECTORS MOTION by Berry, second by Klicko to appoint election inspectors for January 1st, 2025 – December 31st, 2025. Lori Hustad, Janet Boddy, Eileen Gibbs, Charles Spargo, Rebecca Reuter, Cory Reuter, Brooke McLarnan, Bonni Kelly, and Maria Wilczopolski. Motion carried. SERVICES AGREEMENT FOR OFFICE HELP Sindelar stated that the Village is looking at a temp agency for a temporary person to come in and help out the office. That person would gather the information needed to finish the 2023 audit. The temp agency has a candidate in our area who is willing to help us out. MOTION by Sonnenberg, second by Berry to contact Truity Partners and go through them to get someone to assist with that, motion carried. DISCUSSION ON NR-117 Berry stated that NR-117 is what the state recommends that all Villages and municipalities have. If you don’t have one, then you can follow under the county or state guidelines. Berry doesn’t know if the Board has had time to read through it since the last meeting. Berry has talked to Attorney Flanagan, and we really don’t have any ordinances on the Village books like this, so this might be something that we want to consider adopting. The other thing that does have to be considered is how we are going to go about enforcing this ordinance. Flanagan stated that often times you’ll see these provisions in the zoning ordinances. Many municipalities will have the shoreline zoning of course in the zoning ordinance, so in the event that the Village does wish to entertain this or work on this a bit more it could be as all zoning ordinance changes need to be referred to the Plan Commission and ask them to begin on drafting, working with council, also with the DNR to work with the proposed ordinance language and then bring that as a recommendation to the Board. That would keep the progress going there. You can give them some direction if you want them to use the guidance from the state as to model it by. Berry stated that in regard to Friendship Lake seeing as how there are 3 different municipalities Town of Adams, Town of Preston, and Village of Friendship. Both the Town of Adams and the Town of Preston have adopted and follow the county ordinance if he remembers correctly from awhile back. That might be another option too is to just go along and follow there’s. Berry brought this before the Board so we can start reading and have a discussion and figure out how we want to move forward with this. Sonnenberg asked Reuter if she could get a copy of the county’s ordinance and email it to everyone. She said she would. MOTION by Berry, second by Sonnenberg to table it until we have more information, motion carried. RECOMMENDATION FRON PLAN COMMISSION ON COMBINING PARCEL NUMBERS 126-00243-0000 & 126-00243-0010 Flanagan stated that he can give a little background on this. Ronald and Denis Wolf are looking to combine their parcels from two separate parcels into a singe parcel. They have submitted a CSM to do that. Our Land Division Ordinance we have some situations that will always require a CSM. We have other situations where we may require a CSM. And some situations where a CSM is exempt. In this situation it fell in the may require it, we just wanted to make sure that the zoning was consistent. So, we did put it through that process. In the future where there are combinations of parcels between common owners, we probably won’t see them here as they happen relatively VILLAGE BOARD MEETING – December 2ND , 2023, PAGE 3 rottenly. Just a general note that the Plan Commission did consider this item on November 26th, 2024, noted the common zoning, also they had an opportunity to speak with the applicant and made the recommendation to combine the two parcels, and approve the CSM. MOTION by Berry, second by Pierce to approve Planning Committees recommendation to combine the two parcels, motion carried. Oberbeck abstained. UPDATE BY PRESIDENT SINDELAR REGARDING CLEANUP OF EAST LAKE STREET PROPERTY Sindelar stated that he has reached out for counsel. Looked up municipality attorneys finding ones that represent locally. He reached out to individuals. He has narrowed it down to four different firms. Out of those four firms he made contact with three of them. They are putting proposal packets together. Hopefully they get back to him soon. The fourth one he has a call with on Wednesday morning to talk with them and go over all the information. What we’re requiring, so they can put a proposal together. Sonnenberg asked if the Board will do that as an interview prosses? Get the proposals from the attorneys and then the Personnel Committee do some interviewing and then make the recommendation to the Board? Flanagan stated that’s a good question. It’s really up to the Village Board how they want to do it. In the past the Village Board solicited proposals and then did the interviews as a collective body. That said you certainly also solicit the proposals and have the Personnel Committee do the review and make a recommendation to the Village Board. Sindelar stated that from his position he would rather have them come in and make their proposal and have the Board make that choice. Berry asked in regard to the Lake Street property, has Sindelar made any contact with them or touched bass with anyone? Where are we at with that? Sindelar stated that he hasn’t reached out over the last month to talk to them at all. PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE REPORT Charman Pierce stated that the first thing they discussed was the County building project. Frank contacted the DOT , and basically the county is going to have t o go through the state to for their project. The Committee talked about fence violation on Raymond Street. It is the fence that is in the road right away that we’ve been dealing with for a year or more. The Committee’s recommendation is to proceed with the fining process on that. Frank has done all the notices, and he hasn’t complied. Flanagan stated that timing wise what could be done is next month we could put together a packet to pass around to the Board members, so they know the exact violations, the steps we f allowed, the penalty for the violation. We can put together all of that as a package then get the authorization to proceed with the enforcement. The update on meter installations. Frank has gotten quite a few done. There are 13 that still need to be replaced that are in use right now. Frank is going to keep working on that and try to get them all replaced. The update on the garbage on Grand Street, it has all pretty much been picked up. FRIENDSHIP LAKE DISTRICT REPORT Sonnenberg stated that they haven’t had a meeting. The next meeting is scheduled for April, so there is nothing new to report. FIRE DISTRICT REPORT Klicko stated that the work is progressing on the training center. They want an ordinance for bi -annual inspections. We should put that on our next month agenda. They adopted the budget as it was presented . It was an 18 % increase; he thinks our share is $35,000.00. They’ve been working on bank accounts. They have a lot of spare bank accounts. They’re working on some grants. They’re going to hire a grant writer. They’re looking for another truck . There are a couple other trucks they have limited need for and they’re probably going to sell them. One of them is the army surplus general one. They have 9 new members, and they had 16 calls over the last month. AMBULANCE COMMITTEE REPORT Nothing new to report. Next meeting will be in January. VILLAGE BOARD MEETING – December 2ND , 2023, PAGE 4 DISCUSSION AND POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION ON YEAREND BONUSES Klicko stated that the Finance Committee is recommending a $150.00 yearend bonus go to the 4 full-time employees of the Village of Friendship from the Adams County Chamber of Com merce. MOTION by Klicko , second by S onnenberg. Motion carried. CONSIDERATION OF THE ADOPTION OF THE 202 5 BUDGET AS PUBLISHED IN THE REVISED FORM MOTION by Sonnenberg, second by Klicko to adopt the 2025 budget. Motion carried. DISCUSSION & ACTION ON TAXICAB SERVICE LICENSE MOTION by Berry, second by Klicko to approve a Taxicab License for Dennis Rathermel – Adams Friendship Cab Company, LLC CORRESPONDENCE No Correspondence SET AGENDA ITEMS FOR JANUARY 6TH MEETING Caucus Reviewing the violation on Raymond Street Ordinance for the Bi-Annual inspections Review of the County and NR 117 Review of attorney proposals ADJOURNMENT Being no further business to come before the board, MOTION by Berry second by Sonnenberg to adjourn, motion carried. __________________________________________ Rebecca Reuter Deputy Clerk/Treasurer