The Slayton City Council met later in the week due to the Monday Holiday. In attendance were council members Kate Harmsen, Blake Heronimus, Dean Ackerman and Mayor Miron Carney. Absent was Chris Jacobson. The agenda, minutes and claims were all approved.
The Golden Living project continues to move forward. They are waiting on financial paperwork from First National Bank. The Xcel Energy exploratory process also continues. Information is coming in, but the 2021 figures won’t be completed until sometime in May.
The first item of unfinished business to discuss was the “Union Vacation” Topic. The Union labor representative, Eric Austin, had asked the council to consider a proposal of 400 hours of back vacation time for those employees who were not on the same step for pay and vacation. The past practice for the City of Slayton has been to start every employee at step one for vacation not linking it to their pay step. A recent hire negotiated their vacation time to match their pay step in their employment contract. The city is now being asked to consider the future practice of hiring for employees. This has been discussed at multiple meetings these past few weeks. The Council agreed that past practice needed to be adjusted and going forward will adjust all existing employees to have matching vacation and pay steps but will not do any back accrual for vacation hours. This MOU was approved, and the next step is to get union approval.
Moving on to new business, the Council approved the purchase of a new Gator, Z-Track and Mower for the ballfield. They also approved the grant agreement with the state for the airport driveway, resolution 02-22-2022, which covers 95% of the payment of the project through the State of MN.
They next approved the service agreement with Short Elliott Hendrickson Inc. (SEH) for the second step of the wellhead protection plan for the City of Slayton, this is for a cost not to exceed $11,500. This project will be completed by June 2022.
Kari Carlson updated the Council on the variance request from Doug Rupp for the 22nd Street/Oak Lots. At their last meeting, the Zoning Board denied the request for new setbacks for the property in question. The zoning board feels the requested setbacks would allow for the entire lot to be filled with a building, and they weren’t comfortable with it being so close to residential. Rupp has appealed the variance request, and the Council took the limited information that he resubmitted and requested the form to be filled out in entirety for consideration. A hearing was set for the March 21st council meeting.
The last item of business was to approve the renewal of the insurance liability limits, which we do not waive.
With no other business, the meeting was adjourned.
