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Village of Fall Creek Regular Village Board Meeting Minutes 2/14/2022 Page 1 of 3 1. Call to Order: 6:30 p.m., Village Hall Meeting Room, 122 E. Lincoln Ave., Fall Creek 2. Roll Call: Members Present: Village President Tim Raap, Trustees Ben Burch, Karen Herbison, Karen Hurd, Sheena Kaatz, Matt Mattoon, Karen Strasburg. Members Absent: None. Staff Present: Village Administrator/Public Works Director Jared McKee, Clerk/Treasurer Renee Roemhild. Also Present: 4 citizens. 3. Pledge of Allegiance 4. Certify Open Meeting Law Requirements Have Been Met: A notice of the meeting and an agenda was posted at the three public places and local newspapers were notified. 5. Adopt Agenda:  MOTION (Hurd/Herbison) to adopt the agenda as printed. PASSED, without negative vote. 6. Recognition of Visitors/Citizen Input: Karen Strasburg spoke as a citizen saying she wanted to commend Village President Tim Raap for all that he does for the Village and for his service as a volunteer first responder. Strasburg added she would like to recognize all the first responders and thank them for serving our community. 7. Approval of Minutes:  MOTION (Mattoon/Herbison) to approve the 1/10/22 Regular Board, 1/17/22 Finance, Personnel & Economic Development Committee, 1/19/22 Special Board, 1/25/22 Public Works, Public Safety & Property Committee, and 1/25/22 Community Relations, Recreation & Health Committee meeting minutes. PASSED, without negative vote. 8. Financial Report:  MOTION (Mattoon/Kaatz) to approve the 1/31/22 Budget Comparison Report. PASSED, roll call vote: Herbison-yes, Hurd-yes, Kaatz-yes, Mattoon-yes, Raap-yes, Strasburg-yes, Burch-yes. 9. Approval of Bills:  MOTION (Strasburg/Mattoon) to accept the Invoice Listing and Payroll Pay Summary Reports of 1/11/22-2/14/22. PASSED, roll call vote: Hurd-yes, Kaatz-yes, Mattoon-yes, Raap-yes, Strasburg-yes, Burch-yes, Herbison-yes. 10. Report of Village Administrator: Administrator/Public Works Director Jared McKee gave his monthly report highlighting the departmental duties accomplished since the last regular board meeting including thanking the City of Augusta Public Works Department for helping thaw out frozen pipes at Alcivia, stating it was really nice of them to take time out of their day, sending a truck and a couple of guys to help us out. B. 2021 Audit: McKee reported the audit has been going very well. The auditors were in-house for about a week and will be preparing their report which they will present to the Board within the next couple months. C. Distribution of Board Trustee Candidate Bio’s: McKee questioned if the Board wanted to offer the candidates running in the April election a chance to answer a few standard questions and put a short bio on the Village website as a resource for Village residents. Discussion followed.  MOTION (Mattoon/Strasburg) to put the candidate names on the website, offer the candidates three questions to be determined by the Board, with limiting their answers to no more than 250 words, and to allow them to submit a picture. FAILED, roll call vote: Kaatz-abstain, Mattoon-yes, Raap-no, Strasburg-yes, Burch-yes, Herbison-no, Hurd-no. Village of Fall Creek Minutes of Regular Village Board Meeting February 14, 2022 Village of Fall Creek Regular Village Board Meeting Minutes 2/14/2022 Page 2 of 3 A. Personnel Policy Consideration: McKee reported on an action he took based on the leeway given to him in the closed session in November regarding a personnel issue. The motion gave the Administrator permission to do as he felt best regarding a maternity issue because the Village doesn’t technically fall under FMLA rules because of the number of employees. He researched what other communities did regarding employees “gifting” their individual sick time to another employee. Based on what he found, he allowed some employees to do that for one pay period and is now asking the Board if they would like this option to continue. Discussion took place that it could become messy with an employee who “gifted” and then later requests the time back. McKee then asked the Board to grant paid time off maternity leave for an employee.  MOTION (Hurd/Herbison) that the Village pay the employee an additional 4 weeks of maternity leave, on top of the paid time off she’s already received. PASSED, roll call vote: Mattoon-yes, Raap-yes, Strasburg-yes, Burch-yes, Herbison-yes, Hurd-yes, Kaatz- yes. 11. Committee Reports: Raap pointed to the minutes regarding the committee meetings. 12. Unfinished Business: None. 13. New Business A. Consider Passing-On Waste Management’s Garbage Rate Increase: McKee reported the Village has a 5-year contract with Waste Management for garbage services. Having a contract that spans multiple years is a good way to get a lower rate, while specifying parameters for the vendor to receive an annual inflationary rate increase. Our contract states a 3% or CPI increase, whichever is lower. This past year CPI was much higher than 3% so it was very good we had a ceiling specified. The rate change if passed on to the customer would amount to between 34 & 46 cents per month, depending on the size of service the customer has.  MOTION (Herbison/Kaatz) to pass on the 3% increase to the consumers of the garbage service effective March 1, 2022. The adjusted monthly rates will be as follows: Service Size 35 Gallon 13.57 35 Gal + Extra Recycling 15.82 65 Gallon 15.63 65 Gal + Extra Recycling 17.88 95 Gallon 17.69 95 Gal + Extra Recycling 19.94 Recycling Only 6.38 Reinstate Suspended Service (when applicable) 10.00 PASSED, roll call vote: Raap-yes, Strasburg-yes, Burch-yes, Herbison-yes, Hurd- yes, Kaatz-yes, Mattoon-yes. B. Inland Lake: Pay Request from A-1 for Pond Dredging: McKee reported on the dredging and the pay request.  MOTION (Mattoon/Herbison) approving pay request #1 to pay A-1 Excavating $25,802. PASSED, roll call vote: Strasburg-yes, Burch-yes, Herbison-yes, Hurd-yes, Kaatz-yes, Mattoon-yes, Raap-yes. C. Bartender Operator License Applications:  MOTION (Hurd/Herbison) granting a bartender operator license for the remainder of the 2021-2022 license year to Ellie Sell, Tammy Steinke, Singh Sukhandreet and John Thomson. PASSED, without negative vote. 14. Committee Recommendations A. Amendments to Personnel Policy: Discussion took place on the proposed amendments. Village of Fall Creek Regular Village Board Meeting Minutes 2/14/2022 Page 3 of 3  MOTION (Kaatz/Strasburg) to approve the amendments as discussed and noted by the Administrator. PASSED, without negative vote. B. Raether Property Debt Repayment/Debt Strategy: President Raap stated the committee met and reviewed the strategy in detail, then recommended payoff of the Raether loan as of 3/15/22, stipulating that any rent or sales revenue generated from the property would go to the Capital Projects Fund (CPF) to help replenish the funds, and in addition to have the General Fund (GF) make a yearly payment to CPF that would be equivalent to the amount of the principal and interest debt payment GF would have paid to the bank. In this way it would be like the CPF would be “financing” this GF loan, allowing CPF to earn a higher interest rate on their funds than they can earn at the bank. A question arose as to whether the funds would be needed for upcoming capital projects. Discussion took place reviewing the past capital projects completed, along with explaining that projects are spaced out in a timely manner. The points discussed at the committee meeting were reiterated: we have ample fund balance now, there will be decent fund balance remaining after using some funds to pay off this loan, this is our highest interest rate loan making it the wisest choice for which loan to pay off, we will be putting money back into CPF each year to replenish it, lowering the fund balance we have would help us qualify better for grant funds, the committee didn’t feel it would hinder the development process of the Raether property, the committee felt it was a good idea to not pay interest charges to the bank.  MOTION (Mattoon/Burch) to accept the recommendation of the Finance Committee and to pay off the State Trust Fund Loan for the Raether property effective 3/15/22, that any rent or sales revenue generated from the property would go to CPF and in addition that GF yearly pay to CPF an amount equivalent to the debt payment it would have paid to the bank. PASSED, roll call vote: Burch-yes, Herbison-yes, Hurd-no, Kaatz-yes, Mattoon-yes, Raap-yes, Strasburg-yes. C. First Reading of Amendment to Ordinance 2.4.1. Board of Review:  MOTION (Kaatz/Mattoon) to hold the first reading of the above ordinance, basically adding a member to the Board of Review making the total number of members to an odd number to in order to not run into a problem with a tie-vote situation. PASSED, without negative vote. D. Village of Fall Creek Outdoor Recreation Plan 2022-2027:  MOTION (Mattoon/Hurd) to adopting the 2022-2027 Outdoor Recreation Plan as the official outdoor recreation plan of the Village of Fall Creek and to approve RESOLUTION #2022-0214A stating such. PASSED, roll call vote: Herbison-yes, Hurd-yes, Kaatz-yes, Mattoon-yes, Raap-yes, Strasburg-yes, Burch-yes. 15. Possible Assignment to Committee A. Possible Adjustment to Meeting Time for Village Board Meetings:  MOTION (Kaatz/Burch) to start the next two board meetings at 5:30 p.m. and to amend the ordinance to have all future regular meetings at 5:30 p.m. and directing the first reading of an ordinance amendment be prepared for the March meeting. PASSED, without negative vote. 16. Adjournment: @ 9:06 p.m. Renee Roemhild, Clerk/Treasurer