Slayton City Council met on Monday, November 15th. The meeting was called to order, agenda approved, minutes from the October 14th and November 1st were reviewed and the claims were approved for the month.
City Administrator updated the Council of an upcoming meeting with Mitch and Matt for the Golden Living Center Development. They will meet on Thursday, November 18th and Malchow hopes to get a plan for the project along with a schedule. He will update the Council once he has more information.
They moved on to unfinished business first. There were two items to discuss. First was the memorandum from the AFSCME for vacation time from the library board for Lori Stainer and Trish Grieme whose current vacation lanes do not match their pay lanes. This topic came to light recently with the hire of a new Police Officer and as part of his negotiation he requested these items to match. This resulted in the request from the Police Secretary (less than 2 years) to also have her vacation lane and pay lane match. The Council at the October 18th meeting approved her request and to give her back accrual to her hire date. The library requests are for employees who have been with the city for 4 and 6 years. The Council feels they need to re-evaluate the correct path to take for this situation and agreed to table the discussion until more information can be provided to them. They all agree that employees going forward should have matching pay lanes and vacations lanes.
The next item of unfinished business was to approve and accept the Street Foreman position description and pay. This is contingent to union approval. The Council approved this.
Moving on to new business; the first item was the Electric Utility Feasibility Proposal from Dave Berg Consulting, LLC out of Rosemount, MN. The estimated cost is $30-$40k and includes data collection, acquisition cost analyses, financial analysis, assessment of other benefits, risks and uncertainties and to draft and present a final report. City Council member Blake Heronimus voiced his feelings on the cost. He felt it was a fair price considering it breaks down to only $30-$40 per hookup. Eric Pauli with Xcel was present to ask the Council “if there was something Xcel can do to help the process…. I can’t tell you not to do this or tell you to stop. But if I can help utilize our subject matter experts to get you the information you’re looking for, I’m more than happy to help in any way I can.” Heronimus explained to Pauli that by no means is he bad mouthing Xcel. It is simply a matter of the franchise agreement came due and the Council asked the question of “What are our options?” He also stated that it’s not solely a cost issue. The service response times are lacking, Heronimus along with Councilmembers Chris Jacobson and Dean Ackerman see the slow response times when they need power shut off on a fire call. It can take sometimes more than 4 hours to get the help they need. There is also the issue of having an outdated infrastructure and losing power “any time a strong wind blows”. Malchow did also state, “if the numbers and money don’t make sense it’s not an automatic that the city will make this change. It has to make sense.” The Council approved moving forward with the feasibility study.
The next item to discuss was the 2021 Emergency Paid Sick Leave. There are still COVID funds the City can use and the Council agreed to implement the EPSL for full time employees until December 31, 2022. This will help cover for employees who get COVID or must be off to care for someone because of COVID. They also agreed to backdate this policy change to January 1, 2021.
A recommendation from the Zoning Commission for Doug Rupp on parcels the City is selling to him at 2209 Norwood Ave, 2206 Oak Ave, and 2216 Oak Ave to rezone these parcels as B-1 Highway Business District. His son, Rylan Rupp, was present at the meeting and stated he plans to build some storage buildings on these sites. The Council approved the Zoning Commissions recommendation.
Weston Mahon, City Works Director, presented the Council with a request to purchase two new de-humidifiers for the treatment plant. These would replace the single unit that is currently there and not functioning properly. These are budgeted for this year and would cost $6,087. The Council approved this request.
The Council next accepted the engagement letter from Katie Jacobson for the 2022 City Audit. They also discussed and approved a Liquor License request for the City Limits establishment which is scheduled to open later this year. This will be a prorated amount of $130 per month as the current renewal schedule is every April. A full 1-year license is $1550.
With no other business to discuss, the meeting was adjourned. The next meeting is December 6th at 7pm.
