of the United States of America to the stands nation and justice for all. >> Uh, no, Mr. Mayor. I just have one quick item under fire department, but no changes to action items. >> So move >> second. >> I look like there's no presentations, my mic on, or acknowledgements. Uh, anybody here for public comment? Uh, public comments open and closed. Uh consent agenda and [clears throat] a motion to approve. >> I'll make a motion to approve the consent consent agenda. >> Motion by Josh. >> Second. >> Second. All >> there. I >> I'm going to go the whole meeting. Uh-huh. [laughter] No public [clears throat] hearings business. Uh, reports >> fourth quarter financial reports were in the packet. I don't have any additional comments. Are there any questions for staff? >> Appears to be none. Okay. >> Anything from public works? >> Um just uh quick update. Uh Corey and Derek are devoting uh it's helps because of the time of year, but they're devoting quite a bit of time to the uh private well um investigative work. And so um we just had a meeting out today and they indicated they're making a lot of uh they've made a lot of progress in just the last two weeks. So, >> all right, [clears throat] Chief. >> Uh, nothing on our our end unless anyone had any questions about the annual or monthly report. >> Appears to be none from fire >> uh fire related item. So, as the council's aware, um the fire relief sponsors a program on an annual basis to put uh banners um honoring um military personnel um on the decorative street lights through the downtown area. Um given that it's the 50th anniversary of the fire department, they were inquiring about the council's um level of support to amend the policy to allow for this year and maybe like every 10 years that it be um either firefighters and or um law enforcement um honoring current, active, and retired from our specific departments. And if that's the case and you're supportive, I'd bring back a policy amendment and then that would also let Jody know that she can go and start getting the ball rolling on the banners. >> Thanks. That was awesome. >> That's a great idea. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Good. Thank you. >> Um No, only thing I was I was talking with Chief before the meeting. Um, apparently earlier today they they did arrest somebody for stealing a calendar in town. Um, and apparently the guy got 12 months. >> God, that's all I got. [laughter] >> If there's anything actually uh No, nothing formal tonight. Uh, if anybody has anything else, I'm happy [laughter] to answer the questions. >> It wasn't bad. >> Yeah. Yeah. [laughter] >> [laughter] >> All right. Um, only report I have is, uh, we did have a planning commission meeting on Tuesday night of this week. Planning commission reviewed a concept plan for Boulder Heights South development. Uh, and related to the concept plan and potential annexation of the property. Uh, they did recommend approval based on the developer's proposal along with a number of conditions. They did a good job of uh reviewing the application and we'll bring that to you in the future. >> You have no Kate? >> Yep. >> Um last meeting fairly straightforward. uh started talking about organizing prep for the egg hunt um coming up here. And we um started uh working through um kind of like you'd say might say midcycle items related to fire rescue days, making sure that communications are clear as to who's going to be responsible for what and who should be communicating with with who. Um, one of the one of the things that I noticed and and was confirmed um by the people that um are working most in fire rescue days is that now that we're three years into kind of the new model that it's going really well, very smooth. Um, one of the things that uh they're going to be doing extra effort on is um the donations. Um, one it feels like businesses aren't quite as generous as they have been in the previous couple years. But the other part of it is, and for those members that've been on the CCC for a long time, is you have like that first new big thing and you go out and promote it and people are really generous, but then the shine starts to wear off a little bit, but also the aggressiveness of seeking the um, uh, donations waines because you have you just it's easier to send just the letter than make that personal contact that sometimes is all the difference. So there's a lot of discussion about that and one of the underlying themes that seems to come up in some manner in each meeting is just the availability of volunteers um declining or non-growing memberships within the organizations harder to get people to be engaged and involved. Uh for example, the Boy Scouts were excuse me the scouts were super happy because they actually got two new scouts. I mean, and that was like a big deal for them um because the membership just hasn't been what it has been in the past. And you talk to the other organizations and there's similar stories. So, as I've mentioned in our one-on- ones, I think that um there's an incremental trend related to volunteerism um and availability of volunteers and they're necessary to run all of our community stuff. And so, it's just one of those things that's out there. scale. >> Uh so uh no scale meeting. >> Um executive committee um I did not attend the meeting. I was actually remote for most of it and um because I was on my way to a meeting in outstate but Amanda was attending. So >> I was Um, okay. What are we talking about? They're going to be looking to update the the website. And one thing I thought was interesting is they're going to they're looking for whether it be like interns or people that would be interested in helping with updating the website. And I I mean, Newra Schools is not present at these meetings and it sounds like they never have been. So, I was going to reach out to New Prague schools just the school board to be like, "Hey, you should come join. I know most of your schools are in Rice County, but we're part of New Schools." So, I was going to see if they had any programs or anything that might be able to connect some students. >> I think the superintendent has been better recently in attending the full scale meetings, but has never attended a They've never I think you're right. I don't think they've ever attended an executive meeting unless it was a one where all the superintendents were specifically invited to. >> And I don't know like I know we have for sure one school board member that lives in town. I think is her name starts with a J. She lives out here too. Jean Schmidt. Is she still on the board? >> Someone in Cedarly. >> Maybe it's that. >> Yeah. But yeah, so I was gonna see if she wanted to bring it to the school board to see if they had interest in attending the meetings, but also for the project for the website. Um, and then they're also they were brainstorming ideas for projects that could be financed by scale and I feel like I don't have the best grasp on what sort of projects those might be, but just wanted to flag it if we have any ideas that we could bring to the next meeting. >> How much money does more than us. I guess >> they they have I don't I guess I would I again I was remote there there's a there's a chunk of money there and like we use it to fund things like the research that we've done on the consortium in the past that was used to help fund the um live learn initiative. But as you move off there's the pool and what you tend to see is that balance kind of goes like this over time. Um and from what I've seen over the years is you get differences of opinion on the executive committee and it ranges from we should do something on some people are like no we should support some sort of ongoing program and then another view is like no that's not our job as scale. While our job at scale is to initiate things and get things up and going, but then find some place to hand them off to live after we get them going. So we'll provide the seed money. That's always the hardest to get until we can get it going. Um and then of course there's always seems to be various entities that are like here's this project that would be great for scale but is totally beneficial for us, you know. Um there's not a lot of that but there's a little bit. I when I was listening I didn't hear that there's much conclusion to it. It was seemed like a really high level conversation. >> Yeah, it was very high level. One thing that I was thinking about while I was sitting there, but was also thinking you need to do more research before you open your mouth is like if there was some sort of like like I'm thinking about the old school building, old police department, like if they would be interested in like if each city could propose like some sort of like historical or like community something or other to help like help each community. So, it's not because obviously it benefits us. That was my idea, but then it was like, well, nobody's going to get on board with that. But if we get if everybody had an idea and they could all be funded in some way or assisted with the funding, but I don't know if that fits the that could be something that I bring up at service delivery or at the or very informally at the administrator's meeting. Next one, just hey, this is an idea. [laughter] See what what kind of reaction comes up out of it. um service delivery. We did not meet again uh this month. Um that group tends to go through cycles where there's lots of projects and ideas of ways that we can work collaboratively on on projects and although we're working on the insurance consortium, which by no means is a small project, there hasn't been a lot recently. We had some last year, but it seems to have fallen off with regards to ideas of where's where we can work together. Um, as the chair, I'm going to be contacting the most engaged members over the next several weeks and just kind of like informal survey, what are you getting out of it, where should we be doing, etc. Some of the initial feedback was suggesting that maybe we're just at that point where we've we've um grabbed a lot of the lowhanging fruit and maybe we just don't need to meet quite as often. um or maybe we need to pivot a little bit. So I'll be getting that feedback, bringing it back to the committee and then ultimately I think that might come up to if appropriate go up to the executive committee insurance. >> Yes, there >> no. Um so if you recall the next steps were they were going to do an updated feasibility study with all of the members because the consultant that was doing the work has a better tool that did where previously they couldn't get the detailed information on the small group cities um and they were going to update it for today so to speak um and present that back out. So you guys will get that information. and they're actually in the process of trying to schedule a meeting to present that to the group and then I'll bring that back to you guys and there'll be a I think a a intermediate go no-go kind of discussion and then very quickly after that there'll be a decision of are you in or outs for purposes of going out and getting getting quote formal quotes. Um, so this is going to be one of those wait and hurry up kind of deals where we're waiting on the information and because of the timelines for the insurance renewal cycles, we're getting really tight up against it. Um, we're going to be coming back to the council for probably some larger decisions in a relatively um small time frame. So, it's coming, but we're not quite there yet. Nothing since last meeting. >> Motion to adjourn. Second. Second. All >> in favor? [laughter] I I