November 2021

TOWN OF PORT EDWARDS MONTHLY BOARD MEETING MINUTES Date: November 8th, 2021 Call to Order: Chairman Randy Moody called the Town Board Meeting to order at 6 p.m. in the Town Hall with the Pledge of Allegiance. Meeting Certification: This meeting has been properly posted (on the Town’s three posting boards, and on the Town Hall door) as well as published on our website and in the Daily Tribune, to notify the public of date, place, time, and agenda. Attendance: Chairman Randy Moody, Supervisors Tim Schmidt and Jeff O’Donnell, Treasurer Kathy Reese, Clerk Michelle Sorenson, and Road Superintendent Al Goodness. There were also nine people present from the public. Also in attendance were representatives from the City of Wisconsin Rapids and United Emergency Medical Response LLC. Approval of minutes from October 11th, 2021, Town Board Meeting: Clerk presented the minutes from the October Board Meeting. The minutes looked accurate and acceptable. Motion was made by Schmidt and seconded by O’Donnell to accept the minutes as printed. Motion carried. Agenda: Approve the agenda Approve previous meetings’ minutes Approve payment of bills Treasurer and Clerk’s monthly reports Set date for next month’s board meeting Review correspondence New business: Review/pass Resolution #2021-2 allowing the Town to refinance the Lynn Hill Road loan, approve utility permits, discuss and/or approve a contract for emergency medical services coverage for the Town, approve operator licenses for the Ho-Chunk Nation, discuss status of the Town grader Old business: Kellnhofer update, stray animal protocol, discuss ATV/UTVs using Swiggum Lane as a crossing on State Hwy 54 Public input Adjourn Motion was made by Schmidt and seconded by O’Donnell to approve the agenda. Motion carried. Bills: O’Donnell made a motion to approve payment of the town bills listed by the Clerk. Motion was seconded by Schmidt and the motion carried. Total disbursements for the month of October were $666,372.79 with total revenues being $659,133.91. These higher totals take into account grant monies that came in at the beginning of the year for the Lynn Hill Road project that had not yet been recorded. Treasurer and Clerk Financial Reports: The Treasurer and Clerk reports were reviewed by the Board. All reports balance. Total Town money as of October 31st, 2021, is $207,213.41. 1 O’Donnell made a motion to accept the reports. Schmidt seconded said motion. Motion carried. Correspondence: The Town was carbon copied in on a letter to Ana Perez regarding her request for a privy permit. The Village of Port Edwards sent their fire contract proposal to the Town Clerk. The cost for 2022 fire coverage will be $14,835.62. O’Donnell made a motion to approve and sign the contract with the Village of Port Edwards and Schmidt seconded said motion. Motion carried. New Business: Resolution; Clerk presented the #2021-2 Resolution that will allow the Town to refinance their existing loan that was used to cover expenses for the Lynn Hill Road rebuild. The payment that was due on the loan in October was almost the balance left on the loan. Refinancing drops the amount of the installments considerably and the first one is due in October of 2022. O’Donnell moved to approve and sign the Resolution #2021-2 as presented. Schmidt seconded the motion and the motion carried. Utility Permits; The permit applications needing signatures have already been verbally approved by the Chairman. This is just taking care of a formality. The permit applications receiving signatures are for S. Ferkey and J. Barton. Emergency Medical Services; Nekoosa Ambulance Service will no longer be providing ambulance services as of January 1, 2022. The Board had some numbers in front of them to compare services between City of Wisconsin Rapids and United Emergency Medical. While United was cheaper in their quote their response times would be greater than Wisconsin Rapids due to their location. O’Donnell made a motion to approve and sign either a 1 year or 3-year contract with United Emergency Medical Response LLC. There was no second made for this motion and discussion continued. The Chairman asked for a vote of the Board and it came out 2 to 1 for the City of Wisconsin Rapids. Schmidt then made a motion to approve and sign the 4-year contract with the City of Wisconsin Rapids and Moody seconded. Having both a motion and a second with no objections the motion carried. The contract with the City of Wisconsin Rapids was signed and sent with the representatives to obtain their signatures at the next board meeting. Operator Licenses; Ho-Chunk paid the $20.00 fee in cash for the two operator licenses. The applicant’s have taken the required course and passed. Schmidt made a motion to approve and issue the operator licenses for J. Sallaway and A. Comacho. O’Donnell seconded and motion carried. Grader; The County was finally able to come and pick the grader up. When they backed it off of their trailer the axle broke. The County suggested the Town remove the tires from it and scrap the grader. Scrap is around $180.00/ton so the Town can expect to receive approximately $3,000.00 for it. Schmidt made a motion to sell the Town grader for scrap metal and O’Donnell seconded. Motion carried. Al will talk to the County regarding this decision. Kathy from the Town of Remington said that Frank could use their tractor with a pull behind grader to cover the Town of Port Edward’s grading needs. She will talk to her Board regarding rates. Raisin’s Cranberry might also be interested in providing grading services to the Town. Old Business: Kellnhofer; There have not been any recent changes made at his residence nor have there been any meetings between the Town and Kellnhofer. 2 Stray Animals; More discussion was had on making changes to the Dog Ordinance. The Town would like to be able to bill to recover the costs associated with stray animals being picked up. ATV/UTVs; Schmidt talked with Garret Kuhn. The Town doesn’t want to spend the money to open up a crossing at the end of Swiggum Lane. Only option left is to close off access to Swiggum Lane altogether. The Board decided to table the subject as there has been no additional contact made by the landowner who was having problems with the ATV/UTVs going through their yard. Public input: There was none. Next Scheduled Board Meeting: The next regularly scheduled Town Board Meeting is set for Monday, December 13th, 2021, at 6 p.m. The meeting will be conducted at the Town Hall. Adjourn: O’Donnell made a motion to adjourn the meeting at 7:57 p.m. and Schmidt seconded. All were in favor and the motion carried. Respectfully submitted, Michelle Sorenson, Clerk 3