And this is the uh city work's work session of April 7th, 2025. Uh this evening present are myself, the mayor, Lisa Williams, and council members present are Kathy Webkin, Peter Vicky, Claudia Lacy, and Brian Gmer. And then staff present. We have our city engineer Alowski, public works director, uh Gary Peters, uh city assistant administrator, Emily Palos, Jasper Krugal is our administrator, Brian Govern, our finance director, and then sitting in for our police of uh chief this evening is Brown. Josh, officer Brown. Thank you very much, J. Um we have two items on our agenda for discussion. Uh for a work session we have the wooden cove crosswalk discussion and then we're going to also talk about water rate discussions. Uh just kind of for your information our work session is not it's an open public meeting. Thank you for coming. You are welcome to listen in. I'm not taking comments this evening from the public. We have your emails. We have your um uh discussion items are presented before to the council. So, we're well aware of of all of that. We've read those emails. We've heard your comments and taken those um um not lightly. So, with that, I'm going to start out and hopefully make this a rather quick brief discussion. Um I would like to see us install um at least one crosswalk by the um Fox box glove um by the Fox. Hold on just a second. I'm getting there. Getting there. Fox Glove Drive intersection. And I've looked at this. I actually went out there today. I took a look at it. Um I even talked uh briefly with our new chief of police, Craig Squires, and our new deputy chief um Patrick Cummings just briefly at our work at the retirement event. And their comment was, "Well, what is the bad what is the downside to this?" and they couldn't really come up with a downside. Um, so I know we've talked about safety issues and I also had Jasper look up what is the um current state statute regarding crosswalks and pedestrians in streets and actually um if a pedestrian steps into the street and starts to walk as long as there's ample time for a car to stop the pedestrian does have the right of way. Um I think a crosswalk insignia or striping on the road would just make it a little more visible and a little more um alerting drivers as well as pedestrians that this is um an area that is safer to cross. And I know we said, well, it's not as safe, but it is as safe. And I haven't had a chance to do any kind of de, you know, data searches, but um I don't think that anybody would dispute that if there's a crosswalk here and it's used correctly that it's less safe than not having a crosswalk. I also think um it's also good for the city council kind of too. If this is a simple fix, an easy fix, not very expensive, why not do it? That would be the question. What is it fixing? I mean, I've taken it almost every day since March when this first came up. I have never seen an issue with someone not be able to cross or with a huge influx of cars. And I'm not saying it's different. Not saying it's not different than obvious, but what is this fixing? And then what standards are we using to put this in instead of putting it everywhere else residents want one because whatever we do here is going to set a precedent and we have to be able to duplicate duplicate it again. So the the issue here is one what we're fixing is concerns of our residents. That's what we're fixing. They're concerned and they brought their concerns forward. They've stated why they're concerned and and so on. So our what we're fixing is some concerns and safety issues that they have. That's what we're fixing. The other thing is in this particular case, and this is why I'm saying box drive only, not um not the other one that they're requesting because the other one that they're requesting is in the middle of a lock basically. But this one is a four-way intersection and this one is direct access to the park which is just beyond this picture in our packet. And so there's there's a destination if you will, but there's a pedestrian trail crossing right down the street that is clear. Yep. And but it's not here. Oh, I think I think that so many shows that they were visibly concerned about perception and I think we perhaps I um my comment would be I'm not against there being a crosswalk. I think that's um wonderful. I think they should have a crosswalk. Well, the question comes down to who should pay for it because um and I said to one of the residents, the more people that come and talk to us about it, the more like Peter is like, we listen to you. Um but I'm a I'm in a place throughout the month where I see a lot of people in our community and there's always something somebody wants in their neighborhood. Sure. And on the street I live on, we have a beautiful new tennis court off of County Road 44, the G Leonard Park, and that's a destination that we go to and we cross 44. Um, it's a yes, we stay on there and we wait to cross county road or to get to a destination, city park. So, I'm I'm just trying to be fair because, you know, I had 11 residents on Loring Drive say, "We would like the city to come back and build out the staircase that's at the end of Lauren Drive that goes up to Woodland." Um, sorry, Maple Crest. Yes, Maple Crest. And, you know, that affects history. And um I'm not saying that this you know I don't know how many people would be using this every day but I think we need to think about there are many many roads and many projects people in Medista would want. So I think we should discuss maybe we pay to put it in that they maintain it from then on and we are never called to maintain it. We have to have this discussion. Well, the only issue um is that um it's a city road and then um it would actually Fox Club is not on the um south side. That's a private road once it hits the south side, but the crosswalks are going across the city. And so, um, it then you run into issues with, um, it would actually cost us more to work up an agreement and to work sign into an agreement to maintain a crosswalk than it would maintain it because it's like, you know, maybe not even $500 a year or or less to maintain it. Um, but I I understand what you're saying and I think that each request we can look at individually and um that's why I'm saying I don't think we need to do the Princeville one because it's in the middle of the of the block that's on the southern side and it's not going to a destination. Plus, if people want to, and I don't know even why there's that access there, but anyhow, it is um and those people could actually walk over to Fox Club and then cross to go down to the park. What's the What's the cost to put in the about,000? The initial cost, I think Gary got some numbers recently, last week, end of last week, about $1,000 per crosswalk. And that's mostly the setup cost to get it all lined up and stencil. And then moving forward, it'd be about 500 bucks for the intersection each year. If even I mean it would be a nominal cost. And like I said, um well, a lot of people want the cost. Well, what? Okay. One, we have to set a precedent of what we're going to do. So, if 40 people come in and say they want something, we're going to put a crosswalk everywhere they want one. Not necessarily. Well, then because this is a this is a I'm going to ask you to please be quiet because we're having a discussion and it's interrupting. Um, so one of the things is this is Woodland Cole. So, it's the major major street in Woodland Cove. If somebody came and said they want a crosswalk, let's say across um some other side street, I think we could say no because it's not the major thorough fair. This is the major thoroughare through Woodland Cole. And there's another striped crosswalk, right? The block down. I understand that. So to your point of the people on Cranesville who just walk down to Fox Globe to cross, why can't the people on Fox Globe walk down to the trail crossing? And the people from Princeville would have to walk. They'd have Yeah. They'd have to go even further. So, it's just another another opportunity for people to get to that part when they were developing this community. Did someone do like who plans this? Did Did they come up and someone must have decided they did not need Sure, I can jump in. Um, thank you for the question. I wasn't involved with the the initial review of this, but um, typically when you have a development come in and the the developer installs sidewalks, um, we don't usually have uh, side crosswalks placed on on these roadways. Um, we usually hold those conversations when you're looking at more of a collector load. Um so that's why there's no sidewalk or pardon me crosswalks um straight to these roads. I think this is going to get bigger too as they build out the rest of Woodliff Cove because it's going to be the main thoroughare to get out of Cove to the grocery store. So it's it is going to be well it's called the boulevard and I think for good reason. it is going to be the main road out there. There'll be more and more houses, right? Uh I've gone back and forth on this. On one hand, I don't want crosswalks to be a virtue of signal virtue signaling exercise. Um where we just put all crosswalks in care. However, I was looking at the state guidelines for it and honestly I don't think that they apply to a exurban city like ours. Um, so really I I think I'm in for it, but what I'd like to be is a learning opportunity. So I would like the I'm going to cut the email address folks that wrote in we'd like some feedback maybe three months from now so that we have the next request we can go into it with a little more data that is um interestentric and not just right that's a good state yeah right you're correct has their standards but I don't think they always apply to city streets or to our community in particular, but as we know because a lot of times their standards are so egregious that we can't meet those standards. But um so here's what what um I'm going to suggest we do. We don't need to bring this back to a regular council meeting because of the cost to install it. I would just say if we're if we have a majority um to give staff direction that we're okay to have a crossroad installed at Fox Club. is sad. I just want to ask one more. Okay. Sure. Um, yes, it is a city road, but we can't ask that plan development association to pay for it. We can allow it and then let them pay for it. We can't do that. We could, but like I said, by the time So, what you would have to do is you have to enter into a an agreement. We need a lawyer to write that kind of a lawyer. What? by the time you by the time you do that and then here's the other issue then not only by the time you do that and then they have to um sign lean waiverss and they have to um there's all kinds of other issues surrounding that but then the other thing is then we would have to make sure that they do what they're supposed to do. So and then do they do it or do we do it and then build them? So those would be questions that we have to figure out. So for $500 a year, is is it worth it? I mean, that's the hope. That's my my question, but I understand where you're coming from. Well, like what Brian says about watching this and see, you know, if we make everyone in the community happy, it's a wonderful thing. We feel safer. It works great. Um, I have a question. Fox Club on the south side's a private road. Do we strike private roads? We don't. We don't. What's that? Fox live on the south side is a private road. Correct. So, we're going to put crosswalks on the private road. It's going to be a wooden. So, it's just going the across. It's not It's not a four-way crosswalk. It's just crosswalk. Yeah. If I may, I'm I'm looking at the map right now and sometimes these lines aren't exact, but the pedestrian ramps look to be entirely in the rightway of Woodland Cove um Boulevard. So, if we would do four, they would all be in the rightway, not on the private side. So, yeah. So, that's I guess my point is all four of the head ramps are within the rightway. So, are we doing one? Are we doing two, one, four? How many How many crossets are we putting? Just one on the one intersection, one on both sides. How many putting off? That is totally up to the group as far as discussion go. I think there's been one on the west side that's been discussed um north and south. Would there be any reason why we have to do two? I'll defer to Gary. I don't know what the statute is on. Yeah, I I don't know that there's really any guidance that the the council could draw from. I think if we look at um there's where the sidewalk connections are on Box Club, they are on the west side. So, if the council wanted to look at one crosswalk across Woodland Boulevard, that would be a suggestion is to do it on the west side because they have sidewalk coming right on both sides. Yeah. I think just I think to kind of Brian's point, let's do one u monitor it, see how it goes and uh and kind of take note and from from that if you will, but I think one is sufficient. Okay. And then if I may, um you mentioned something about a 30 day three month followup. Um is it three months? Is that what I heard? Or was it 30 days? Three months. We put out Yeah. Like midsummer probably like a July maybe check in. Yeah. Yeah. And I I'm assuming too then there would be signs posted prior to those um pedestrians as well as vehicular travel that there's a crosswalk ahead. I mean is that's that standard, right? Alison, I guess that would be an Alison question. I think with that would be a prudent thing to do to alert the drivers if there's one cross. So I think sidewalks or car signs are usually running about 300. Yeah. When you get the post well Okay. So another 500 for each sign. So be another $1,000. So you're looking at $2,000,000 for the striking a,000 for the signs. Are they going to be related signs like on Kings Point Road or just regular ones? Just regular. Okay. Are we in agreement? Because um Jasper has the authority to spend up to a certain amount. So, we're guessing it's going to be around with the signage around 2,000. So, if we're in agreement, we can just give direction for him to do that. Gary, I just want to read something. Sure. Pedestrian may must not enter a crosswalk if the vehicle is approaching. There is no defined distance that pedestrian must abide by before entering a crosswalk, but common sense should prevail. The law states, "No pedestrian shall suddenly leave a curb or other place of safety and block or run into a path of vehicle which is close that is that is impossible for the driver to yield. crosswalk does not have to be marked to be covered by this law. At an intersection, a crosswalk exists from sidewalk to sidewalk even if lines are not being on the street. And the only So I mean technically basically Josh could see somebody you know in the crosswalk beer at them you give them a ticket first a you know gee, you know, it doesn't happen anymore. So I'm just throwing it out there. I don't care one way or the other. Let me know what you want us to do. We could add it to the list of the mark. That's that's kind of what I was Yeah, that's kind of what I was saying earlier that um a pedestrian runs in the roadway and if a vehicle has an opportunity to stop, they have the right of way. The crosswalk, all it does is add an extra visual so that cars are alerted that there's a possible crosswalk and pedestrians ahead. So, it just adds a little more safety. That's all. So, all right. Um any other comments, questions? If not, do you have enough direction? I believe so. Thank you very much. So now very important discussion is not that that wasn't but this is also very important is our water rate discussion. As you know, we're going to have a town hall meeting next Monday. and before that meeting it would be nice to have some things possibilities and options of the board. So that's we're not making any decisions tonight but we want to hear staff's ideas if you have ideas um so that we can present these ideas at the town hall meeting and get some feedback from our residents. So, with that, yeah, Madame Mayor, members of council, um, as you can see in the staff report, uh, we're talking about building a plant that's about $22 million. Uh, the bond payment for that plant using kind of an estimated 4% interest and a 20-year bond uh, period would cost about it cost the city roughly like $1.62 million a year in in a bond payment. So that's essentially what we're talking about having to make up in our our current revenue stream for water right now. And I'm going off memory. Correct me if I'm wrong, Brian, but we're at about 1.7 million in total revenue for a good year for a for a good year. For a dry year probably like year is probably 1.2 1.3. So it fluctuates quite a bit. So um depending on that that we have to come up with that much money each year. So if we build the plant, we we have to raise rates significantly. Um and this is something that can be done over a year or two if we want to. Um just knowing that your end product will likely be higher if you kind of extend it over a couple years. But we have to we have to make up some um some revenue. And I guess the goal tonight isn't really to come up with exactly how we want to do it, but to talk about just some options as the mayor alluded to. Uh, a couple things that we've talked about in the past, uh, one of our neighboring communities, Minnotonka Beach, I think they're the only ones that that I could find that do it this way, they have a separate charge just for um, water treatment. So, they they they they built recently at I think believe it was around a $10.5 million plant. Um, and I haven't been able to confirm this yet, but they currently have a $335 per quarter charge. Um, and just talking to the mayor in passing a couple weeks ago, they're actually adding some onto that that exact amount. I don't know what it is. I believe it was around 150 or 160 more dollars per quarter. Um, so they're probably looking at about they only have 200 resident. Yeah. So 200 panic yet. They're they're a little little bit different um than us as far as the ratio goes. The other option is, you know, we have a current kind of conservation um rate tier system where we have um three different tiers. One that goes from 0 to 25,000, 25,000 to 65,000, then over 65,000 gallons. Um the way that we could look at this is is adjusting those rates upward um so that they can accumulate enough revenue to pay that bond payment along with all the other um water related charges that we have. Um one thing if you note um if we would go with just using the um usage charges one one note that AE2s our water engineer group mentioned was that we should probably evaluate the ratio between each of the tiers. Um generally they they say rule of thumb is like 2 to one. So let's say our first tier is $5. Um our next one should be 10 and the next one should be 20. Right now we're a little bit low probably on the top tier if we follow that rule. So, if we would work it into usage, um we probably look at re-evaluating the tiers, which can be um if you remember, uh I know that our staff do from the last time we adjusted the the tiers or, you know, can be problematic because people get high bills on Q3. Um so, those are kind of the two options I think are viable. There is an option to do an assessment. So, um follow the 429 process and assess property owners. um it that is problematic because you're kind of locking in the cost of this plant to the existing user base and not sharing that cost with future users. Um it's an option. I would recommend against it. I just it's not equitable at all uh to be able to to do that, but it is an option. Um some communities that are completely built out have done that. I know for for things like specifically for wastewater, but you could do it for water as well. But so I think really what we're looking at doing is looking at evaluating are the um the the fee the single fee for water treatment fee you call it or something like that or adjusting the user rates to generate enough revenue um to make our payments. Well we have we have two other buckets though for revenue. We have connection fees and we have area charges for when a development comes in. So, um, and I think every year we need to be looking at those fees as well, um, to subsidize water infrastructure. Yes, that is also true. And you, I know we looked at it last year and made some pretty substantial increases to those. I think um as far as a strategy moving forward, we should just look at those, make sure that we don't price ourselves out of the development game and make sure that we're because we're a growing community, we should probably have some of the higher water access charge and and area charges for water just to make sure, but we don't get those unless we build houses or land is developed. So there's kind of a double-edged sword, but those are two things that we can and and likely will adjust and we'll look at um during that process when we set the fee schedule and the escrow the money ahead of when we issue the bonds. So say we start collecting fees now, can we kind of put that aside or plan? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of communities choose to do that proactively where they try to accumulate funds for a big project and then maybe use some cash to buy it down. We're not I don't think in that position right now. Um generally our water fund has I think roughly about a million dollar or a little bit more um fund balance. So which is probably something we're going to have to look at when we start taking on more debt because we want to make sure if you know something happens we'll be able to pay that. So I don't we we don't have a lot of cash but if we would have been saying 10 years ago 20 years ago and that was the strategy was to accumulate some more cash beforehand we could have done that but that was the strategy. The problem is is this this project is like nearly doubled from what we thought it would be. So um yeah so one of the options too that maybe came up was to make a midyear adjustment for rates. Um that's something that you could consider. it would almost be cleaner to do it at the beginning of the year like we we have done in the past, but if you'd like to try to get ahead of it a little bit more, you could think about that. Um, it's probably you want to do it until like Q4 or something because well, depending what option we do, if we do the fee, we could just start fee for the issue is if we just raise the rates, if it's a really bad summer, we're not going to make enough money to pay that. So, you know, unless we want to set the base rate ridiculously high, so no matter what we have, I would be a proponent of doing the water treatment fee just so residents have a line item and then it's more move in the water system. We can they can also start paying the fee immediately and it's not tied to their water uses per se, just that they're using the water. Yeah. And I I think we'll be able to dive into all the different options. I think we're we're looking for tonight is just what what do we feel comfortable as a group throwing out there to the town hall. We'll do a deep dive into this. Don't worry. Um especially if we get to the point where we bid and award the contract, like we're going to have to figure this out um during the budget process. But really, I mean, if there's other ideas, you can blend the two ideas, too. You could have half of the, you know, call it the base rate. You could you could you could throw some more at the base rate and then you wouldn't have to raise rates as much. Then you get like like uh council member Ruffkin is saying guaranteed revenue. I think that's the risk of putting it all into um the usage fees. If we have a wet summer, you know, our revenues go down by 20% potentially, maybe more. Uh but if we have a dry summer, it goes up, you know, they go up. So it es and flows based on that weather pattern. Do we have any I was just looking at the tier cities around us and most of them are bottom tier is about a third of what our bottom tier is is. So you price bottle for price. So like most of them are around 8,000 8 to 9,000 gallons um for the bottom tier. It just feels like that might run the base a little bit more than trying to count everything on these top water users pay for it. Well, quarterly or monthly because ours are extra money. Yeah. That is a good suggest. I mean, some cities do do like, you know, four or five tiers, you know, and and try to to get a little more at those lower levels. And well, and really, you should only have to use I mean, our bill at our house is 4,000 a month. Usually 12,000 a quarter. I mean our 0 to 25 is probably a little you know high where we which we'd want to do like as you know whether you do quarterly or monthly however you slice it but if you do a zero to 12 is the first tier and then you do 12 to 25 and 25 to 50 50 to 75 and or 65 whatever you know something that would guarantee a little more revenue by and I think even the DNR and stuff in the past has said you know our tiers are definitely not the most restrictive by any means I mean we used to have really unrestrictive tiers I mean I think the mayor can number and stuff. Yeah, we didn't have tiers and when we did we had really loose tiers and then so there is I mean you know whether you know three is the right way to split it we could do four or five tiers that would you know guarantee a little more revenue based on not having to hit some of those thresholds. Yeah. Well then those people that don't use a lot kind of get you know they don't have to pay as much either. Um I think um so then the other thing to consider is if you do a let's call it a treatment plant fee then as we get more homes online it would then stand a reason that that fee would go down. So you be making that adjustment every year, you know. So, and I was talking with Jasper, you know, we're seeing approximately a 4% growth. It would it would be a solver. For every hundred homes that we would add to the system, it would drop the that fee at 80 $186 a quarter by 4%. Is what it would go down. So every hundred homes would make it go down to 4% if that's the number that it's set at, you know. So if it's set at 200, it'd be it still be 4%. But um and we can we can look at it every year. I mean, you'd want to look at it every year to make sure that um not only is our is our debt payment covered, but our operational um expenses are covered as well. So it may or may not go down. I I don't want to promise that it's going to go down, but it would stand a reason that it would pay off sooner. It depends on the bond. Yeah. But I mean, I wish that would happen. I don't envision that happening in many scenarios. I'm more worried about more of a negative revenue stream or balance or what do you want to call it? Income statement. And you know, we're kind of jumping into the more budget discussion, but you know, if we do change the tiers up, there's going to be some unknowns on how that'll affect the behavior. So we won't know exactly what the revenue will be. So it'll have to be a moving target and generally you try to at that first year is overestimate a little bit just to give yourself a little bit of room and then that second year or third year then you can make it the adjustments hopefully. Um but that's one thing you don't want to do is is sell yourself short and then all of a sudden you make these big changes and then you didn't do enough and then you're coming back to the public and saying oh gez we didn't charge you enough. We need to actually you know instead of going up a normal 5% we need to go up another 15 the second year. So, um there's a bunch of different ways to approach, but yeah, really what we're looking at if there's any other ideas from city council on how to approach this um kind of revenue challenge um that we're going to likely see if we build this plant. um you know the the fee the single fee or the usage or some blended um so we're talking about okay so we're talking about adding a potentially adding a um we're calling a treatment plant fee and everybody pays the same and then um and then we're talking about maybe raising the base rate maybe at least a little we'd have to figure out how much that would be and then we're talking about um maybe adjusting the tiers and maybe taking some obviously some adjustments upward for the rates or some or if you did I guess we'd have to almost maybe the public would want to know well what does this look like on my bill you know what what what does if you adjusted the base rate and adjusted the tiers how much would you have to adjust to make that up and what would it cost me I mean I think that would be a question that they right right now I think I mean obviously the biggest thing we want to be honest and transparent with our residents. What we all want to be is I mean right now someone that's probably paying water, you know, a reasonable user is probably paying $1,000 for the year, you know, or whatever, you know, probably whether that's, you know, 80 bucks a month, 250 bucks a quarter or whatever. But in order to pay for if this project moves forward at 22 million, if that's the right number, I mean, before we were looking at doing on a $15 million project like 13 to 15% increases for several years. Yeah. I mean, now you're I mean, when Jasper says it's going to double, if you used to pay $1,000 for water, you're now probably going to be paying in within three to five years, you're going to be paying 2,000 a year for water. And three to five. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, to be honest with everybody, I guess, or it's I don't see any way around it. I mean, people's bills that they pay on the year going to have to probably double. I mean, how long you split it or fee or depending on the other option is uh you don't build a treatment plant and people have water sometimes they have yellow water or higher maganesees and and you have to alert them that you know there's some health issues if if that's what they where they want to go. I also sound like the commercial rates and the residential rates are the same. Is there enough commercial usage to that option? Not yet. No, not really. So, there's I mean the school was our big commercial user technically. Um they've since went basically all off all off of our water and onto their own irrigation system for irrigation. For irrigation. So, they they still have a base amount that they use, but they used to use a lot of water um in the summer for irrigation. um until we get more commercial that you know we could adjust those rates with the the revenue impacts lower than what our residential is. So we're like 93 94% residential for our water revenue or you know somewhere north of 90%. Yeah. So and one thing I looked into a little bit today because I think the mayor brought it up was you know we have one apartment complex and we went through an exercise last year to figure out how we're going to charge them. Um, and the way it works is they get charged the base fee, but then they get charged the residential rate. So, one base fee, residential rates for their whole complex, not the commercial rate. So, we I remember doing an analysis and it was kind of a wash between the two, but that's how we handle apartments. And, you know, their bill is like four 4,000 a month right now. And then I also asked Jasm, so if we get a fee, let's just say we have to talk about is that fair to charge an apartment unit, which is 148 units, the same as a residential property. And when you think about it, some of the apartments that they have are about the same size as some of the town homes that we have. So then we have to we'll have to discuss that. Commercial fee. Yeah, we'll have to make some kind of adjustment there. So, um, yeah, we'll have to talk about that as well if that's the route we want to go. I like the idea of a spreadsheet. I think we should include the connection charges, development charges, and maybe we could see all parts and what if we change this, how it affect those things. That would be really helpful, right? Yeah, and I think we talked about um doing that for the town hall meeting so people can actually see how we're paying for everything because there are three or four different well right now there's three different buckets user fees and then um the development fees and then connection charges. Yeah. And and for you know, we talked about doing a maybe eventually once we figure out what we're going to do a calculator or a set of tables that people can kind of match up their 2025 usage and then then compared to the 2026 whatever we settle in on so they can kind of see the difference between the rates too. So, but yeah, as Brian alluded to, um you know, it's going to not be a good fun conversation. I mean, things are going to essentially double or need to double. plus plus all the other additional water stuff that we have going on too, like just ongoing maintenance and um you know, Gary's Gary and I had a conversation today about required testing um that they're really making us ramp up on. And so there's it's coming in at all angles on this. Yeah. Some people don't bat an eye at paying 2,2500 for a year for water and some people do you know or whatever you know and some of those people that you know they water their lawn a lot and you know if they have the reasonable expectations and if to them it's but for some people for their bill going from 2,000 for a moderate user or whatever you know or to 5,000 might get people for the year. The other thing is, Brian, and I agree with that, especially for senior citizens that are on, you know, social security and all of that. I won't mention um no, I mean, you're you know, you taking a thousand additional hit is is big for some people. Um but I think if you can, if we put it into let's say a monthly perspective, what does that be? $90 basically is858 a month and I think that comes back to your comment um Kathleen about um going to monthly billing and I was talking to Jasper saying because of all these other things that we have to add next year not not water-wise but otherwise um maybe we don't want to do it next year but maybe we do what's implement or Right. We need to start launching the money sooner rather than later. So maybe if if we zero in and decide on a water treatment plant feed, maybe we do that starting this year, but then maybe we do the increase next year and then we start doing um monthly billing starting Q2 of next year. Something like that. You know, that might also help stagger things because keep in mind if you add monthly billings, it's going to add more cost. We offer budget billing where people pay a flat rate throughout the year. We don't yet, but that's something we've talked about um offering. I think we did a little examination. Vanyionary utility billing software is can do that. Um but we just we haven't offered it. So, but I think that would be be something to help normalize the costs over either quarterly or monthly basis. Hard part to live with is you're always sort of chasing your tail because you're never totally balancing up. You're always using it based on whatever historical from the past one, two, three years. And some ways it's like it's already going to be hard enough to pay for this thing. And then you're you're delaying revenue potentially or but I don't know. You know, you're just not trueing up or whatever right away. So why I don't maybe a monthly bill you are. So what what are your thoughts? I mean I mean I've said it before I think is the most transparent and then everyone knows what it's going towards and then we don't have to rely on the rate usage to make payment. Yeah, I like I like that idea, too. And it makes it, you know, broad base, so it's it spreads out pain. Yeah. Well, everybody needs the water treatment plant um no matter how much water you use. And I think that's kind of the idea behind it. Um so, yeah, every um and I know Jasper in his um in the presentation here um was like 186 for three months. So divide that up, you know, $62 would basically $65. And I'll put a big nuance on that. That's an administrator calculation. We'll have to definitely do a deep dive with uh some of the utility billing stuff to kind of especially if we change some of the tiers and you know there's a lot of moving parts. That's that's just a quick estimate. If we have to double or we have to come up with $1.6 million right away, that's what it would be based on. I think 1100 or 12 2241 or whatever users. If um we add more tiers, is that just like you click in the software and simple to Yeah, that's not too bad. Yeah. Yeah. If we do do the 100 or whatever it ends up being 75 80 $100 a month uh fee. The only request I would have is that everyone's all the council all the way down through every staff person's on board with it. Arie's willing to take more calls and Jasper because it it shouldn't shouldn't just be Darcy and Renee and Angie that gets hit by it have to be a total team effort because I mean if it's you know there's there's getting slammed on the finance side and there's getting slammed on well the water quality isn't quite good enough. So, it should be a total team effort. If ever they move somewhere that there are other communities that are charging about the same as we do and their water, they can't even drink their water. Yeah, that's I think that there's and and this is the other reason we thought the town hall would be good, too, is just to let people know what we're doing and why we're doing it. Because, you know, when you see your water rates go up, you're like, "What the heck?" You know, why? And so when we explain we're building another treatment plant and you're going to continue getting really good quality drinkable water and because our maganesees aside, you know, you give them all these all of this information, at least they know what they're paying for and it's not well I still have a terrible water. So, I mean that that if I was the resident of another community with brown water and I was being charged more and I didn't know what their plan was and I, you know, I didn't know anything. I would be pretty upset. But maybe if we do this explanation, we won't get humbled too hard. Well, I'm assuming we do a mailer that would buy everyone of the network. They said they didn't know it was going on. We'll exhaust, you know, communication efforts. Um, but there will be no doubt that people, some people might miss it. They might not like it. They might not realize it till they get their first bill. You know, that in Q3 of 2026, that's when it'll hit and that's when we'll get all the calls. So, question comment. Um I was told that um the powers the be changed the level of manganese from one level that's acceptable to a lower level. Correct. So could it be that manganese is really not a big deal? They just want to force us to I mean I grew up drinking that water. Granted it's so much worse now. I think I've seen pictures all over local not just our neighbor. You can't really see me. No, but I'm saying our water looks clean and looks are gray. Um I I just wonder is it really in fact because I don't want fluoride in my water. That's a thing now where but so maganesees I mean apparently there's scientists and doctors and who knows what else that research this and and um then come up with a a base you know that they say okay this is what we found through through tests and and whatever that it shouldn't surpass this because it's potentially dangerous. So current currently they're saying that magnes isn't necessarily dangerous for adults, but it's for children and for pregnant um people, women. So senior citizens and oh and senior citizens too. So maybe that's why I can't think anymore. Yeah, that is true. True. I mean, that's that's one of the things that Mound ran into was they changed that healthbased standard three or four years ago and then that triggered them to not meet it and then they had to send out all these letters to everybody saying their water's unsafe to drink. And I think as we continue to blend our water a little bit more and we do every year a little bit, but if we get to the point eventually we're going to have to send those letters out. And that's kind of I think what the mayor is alluding to. If we don't build the plant, you will likely have to send these letters out saying, "Well, be careful, you know, be at least know what you're drinking, you know, and and consider that before you drink it." Um, respect to the rates, what are you guys supposed to adding more tiers? You good with three tiers? Thoughts? I think it's a good idea to raise more tiers and to still kind of focus on that higher usage to try to bring that down. But I think that's going to have to be a combination of three. Yeah. And I do like I like the fee, but let's see, you know, the treatment plant feed. But um so here's here's the thing. What we might get and I think some questions that might come up is we have two systems, if you know, it's the northern system and the southern central system. And so what people in the north are going to say is, well, why should we have to pay for the treatment plant in the south? My answer to that is because the people in the south are paying for your um rehabilitation of a water tower and they paid for they're paying for your treatment plan and they're also paying for all the water infrastructure that we recently did a couple years ago on morning view. They're paying for that as well. So it's it's a whole it's a system. It's a whole system. It's not like they're just paying for this. It's it's all this 2.6 whatever the 1.6 6 million. We're still paying for the treatment plant in the north and the other treatment plant in the south. So, we're still paying for that. Um, so it's not like we're not the people in the south aren't paying for the north. It's we're all paying together for everything. So, in case you're ask that, just so you know, it's just one system. That would be my one system. They're not connected, but it is it is one one. We utility take the money we have the funds and allocated separately. So when we do repair on the north side to sell people's money's in a separate account at which point we probably have way more money for the center people on the north side because I think yeah we have what about 500 maybe no not even what in the north in the north like 4 500 400 whatever it is and in the south we have quite a bit the Yeah. 1700. Right. All right. Other questions, comments. And so, next question. I have a question. How many people are going to be at the town hall meeting? Okay. Okay. So, um, should we put targets on? I told Jasper, "You guys don't have to worry. Probably they'll shoot target arrows, some bows and arrows that Jasper and I can back and wave at us." I think we have an opportunity to have this go well because our sister city, you know, our neighboring city has no names mentioned. They've experienced, you know, what it's like to be a lot can't drink. Yeah. And it's not like we have a choice. We we need we need this. It's a necessity. Exactly. Um it's not some luxury. It's not a crazy expenditure. It's something we need and how it costs. Yeah. Done our due diligence and really done our due diligence. So, um it's a it's expensive. Yeah. It is. Good point. All right. So with that then um what's on our agenda for our next work session? Do you know? Can I bring something up? We might be the wrong place. I'm sorry. Just be quick. Okay. Work session. Yeah. Can I talk about chickens? No. No. But we can So our next work session, do you want to talk about chickens? Um so we we actually have that slated. I sent you an email today. June 16th. That is a long way away. It is. I can see if I can I can see if I can move it up. What I need to do is have the community development staff kind of develop what needs to change in our code. I know exactly what needs to change. It's very simple. Well, not that simple, but it's very simple. It a tiny little change code. Well, if we So, if we if we permit them, that's a kind of a big step internally, but Okay. But we're going to bring it back. I was just asking for um ideas what what's on the agenda for the next one. I'm pulling it up right now. I know we have a couple things on here. Um uh we have a few minutes. We have a closed session for active litigation. Okay. So, we're going to talk about some stuff there. Um and then I have on here um code of conduct review. That's I was going to bring that up regular meeting does. So, I don't know if you've seen in the paper lately, but I know it's um oral has is creating a code of conduct and other and then I checked with other communities that already have them and I thought, you know, since we're good, we're good here. No problems. I'm not saying there are um but it's maybe a good idea to create one before it becomes a problem. So, um I just So, that'll be um on our agenda or discussion. talk about chickens before June. Oh, yeah. I got it on. So, we'll try to balance them out. May 5th is full. Um, what else is on the It's the 21st. Just those two items. We just earlier and talk about chickens and get it over. Yeah. Thank you. There's a lot of people with chickens already that are outlawed, you know. And no one's complaining. I mean, there's a lot of people with chickens. So, I just I I'm trying to appeal the people that want them do the right thing. We'll talk later about chickens. We're going to add that on the chicken in a row. We're going to add that on the 21st. So, um, yes, I will add that. And then we'll start if need be. If you think we need to start at 5. So, starting at No, I don't I don't think we we would. I think 5:30. I think we're still good at 5:30. All right. So, those will be the items on the 21st. All right. So, with that, is there a motion to adjourn the work session? Thank you, Claudia. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Kathleen. All those in favor signify by I. All those opposed. Motion passes. We are adjourned until 7 o'clock. Thank you. And there's food in the back. Social media post already. We'll share them with staff. That's usually the best way to do it.