Item C (Transfer of funds)
In preparation of the audit every year, fiscal year end fund balances are adjusted to meet certain criteria including legal requirements and where we want some funds to be at to coincide with the city's Long Term Plan.
To that end, two significant adjustments were made from the previously approved 2020 budget:
- The Funds that were being used to make payments on the 2009A and 2010A bonds were sufficient enough to allow us to pay those bonds off this year and will be applied to the 2013A bond and allow us to pay that off early.
- The general fund had a revenue of $814,000 more than expenditures for 2020. That money was moved into the Temp Financing fund. Keep in mind that a good portion of that money was due to fees that haven't had expenditures against them as of yet. As an example, a building permit issued in October will show as revenue, but very little of the costs associated with that permit have been spent. But... the policy is to have 40% funds available for the general fund and this $814,000 was above that.
Item G (South Dayton Water study)
Last year a study was authorized to look at a well in the Southwest area to source a new system. The study came back with a water quality problem due to high radium concentrations. Believe it or not radium is everywhere (it produces Radon gas as it decays) but, there are limits on what is considered "safe" and this measurement was over that limit. One of the options is to change the depth of the well (apparently shale deposits are high in Radium) so more work will be performed to dig into this issue.
Item H (Pre local board of appeals)
This was just a discussion of what the city / council needs to do for this.
Note: If you disagree with the VALUE or CLASS determination of your property, you need to contact the assessor's office at the phone number supplied on your preliminary property tax statement.
Item J (purchase of Police equipment)
This item was left over from a few meetings back. There was some concern about the cost but my primary concern was that the contract is going to a city employee. And while I would always want the city to "purchase locally", that one concerns me because it can lead to unethical situations. Our city has in the past had what I would consider "ethical challenges" and I wanted to make sure this item was done in the open and as clean as we could make it. In the end the awarding of the contract to the employee was unanimous but there was agreement among the council that we should probably look at a future policy to make these as clean as we can.
Item K (Activity Center and Programs)
For those of you not familiar with our Activity Center events, there are a lot of activities planned for all ages! (Click to see)
Item M (Kwik Trip development)
Most of this was pretty standard stuff for new commercial developments going in. There were three areas of concern for most members;
- Noise from the car wash
Automated car washes, specifically the blowers, generate a lot of noise. For this application the fans are away from the homes, but when a car comes up to the entrance and the fans are still running, a lot of noise will still make it through to the homes. Our suggestion was to find some way to mitigate this noise whether it be through fencing, trees, or another solution.
- Loss of the kid's play area.
I brought this up at the concept review in November. Unfortunately it sounds like nothing was done do provide some options. And to be fair there isn't much we can do other than suggest the two parties come up with an answer.
- Frontage road size / need.
This frontage road was requested by the city. It does benefit the businesses and the city (emergency vehicle access, school bus pickup) but one of the results is loss of the play area. I think the frontage road makes sense if a solution can be found for the play area.
Item O (Animal ordinance)
For those of you that stayed awake during the previous discussion (Item k here) this was a follow on from that. The result is we no longer require licensing of dogs. That doesn't mean you get to allow your dogs (or cats) to roam freely onto other people's property. You can still be fined for an "at large" animal.
This also allowed staff to consolidate some code requirements.
For those of you interested in the rules for animals (other than cats and dogs) you might find the ordinance interesting - page 217 in the packet.