You know, you always Well, please don't forget the one that we have. You won't be able to get on the network. Oh, the network. Okay. To the internet. Internet. You'll be fine. Um I'm going to keep trying it on. >> It's annoying because we tried logging in like she was able to go in. Paula wasn't. I wasn't. Then we reset the router thinking, "Oh, maybe that'll help." But >> [clears throat] >> Oh, and Ryan, by the way, just so he doesn't walk off with it, he has my bill. >> Oh, okay. >> I got a $45 check. >> Okay. >> Oh, your bill. >> On my desk. >> Got it. Got it. Got it. Got >> first. I was like, do I owe you something or not? >> Lisa is issuing invoices. And I don't the very next before. Yeah, I'll have to go. Anyhow, >> you have your office. >> No, it's working fine in there. Oh, no. No. Or whatever. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh yes. Oh >> yeah. Okay. >> Do it. I do know that you ask me when I get I just left my store. >> Yes. >> So are we recording? Did we record all this other stuff that we can just delete? Okay. All right. This is the I'm going to call the meeting to order and this is the regular or the work session uh for the city of Manchester on November 3rd, 2025. I want to start out with the introductions as to who is here. I'm Mr. Wayland. I'm the mayor. Um council members present are Peter Vicky, Claudia Lacy, Brian Dubb, um Kathleen Rein is absent this evening. We also have staff present. We have Brian Grim and Jubo and Alison Powski, Gary Peters, and Paul Paul. With that, we have a number of items on our agenda. We have our storm surface water budget discussion. We have the recycling fund budget discussion, the cable fund budget discussion, and the base cycling drainage update. So, with that, I'm going to hand it over to >> I think I'll start. >> Right. Sounds like I'm make working mainly off the packet. It's been our network might be a little uh yes, sounds like everyone's figured that out. [laughter] So, um yeah, as far as um yeah, the three different uh budget items. Yeah, the first one in there is the uh storm and surface water um fund utility discussion. Uh assume um that one's probably pretty straightforward. I guess staff would recommend that we keep the rate per quarter at the $29 a quarter. I think it's been that the last couple years. Um we've been able to keep that fund balance in that $8 to $900,000 range um based on just the revenue coming in versus um the expenditures and the the projects that we're doing going out. Um I don't know if anyone has any questions. I think if we do all the projects we do next year would be spent down some, but we'd still be at a pretty comfortable balance as far as is 900,000 Um, that seems high to me. >> I think depending on how aggressive we are at doing stuff, it can go pretty fast. So, Gary would probably second that, right? I'm just [laughter] >> No, but I mean I guess it's probably better to be in this position than something where we're needing to I mean so I know I can remember 10 years ago we were probably 2015 or maybe a little earlier we were down at a 100,000 and the state auditor would send us like letters saying your storm water fund might be a little low you know or whatever [clears throat] on the so >> I mean usually it's um you know a yearish um expenditure. So yeah, I guess we probably are four or 500,000 budget in this fund. So we're probably yeah a little on the higher side, but then if we decide to do a project that's 200,000 a year, then it's 200,000 less, you know, or whatever of depending on that. So um yeah, the there's so at the next city council meeting, I think it'll be the next one, we keep pushing this back, there will be a conversation about storm water ponds and responsibility of cleaning those out. There's kind of a long history of this where there's a lot there's a few that are in our um SWIP or yeah, our MS4 permit that we're responsible for ultimately that are in an HOA area that kind of doesn't have an organized board. Um so we're going to have to get direction from city council on how we want to approach those or we have to clean those out. That might be a storm water project. Um, I know we've tal we've talked about a few things with possibly assessing properties around there. Sarah's dug into that a little bit. It's kind of challenging to do an assessment. Um, you know, kind of moving forward. A lot of what a lot of communities end up doing is using this type of fund to fund those types of projects. Um, just because it's, you know, they kind of benefit the entire community through different things. So, but that's a decision that we'll have to have a conversation about. um at a future date. I think it's slated for the 17th. Um right now it might get moved. That one kind of gets punted the easiest. Uh but so there there might be some larger projects looming like we don't have I don't know Allison, you can maybe weigh in and um there's there isn't any imminent storm water pond that needs to be cleaned out right now immediately that we don't have control over. But there will be as time goes on. Um that potential coming up. bills aren't going to be 8 or $900,000 two 400,000 I mean almost thinking there was four ponds that were identified on those surveys I say at most it was 20,000 so you know they're not even yeah so I think yeah so I think I mean, in my opinion, this is just my opinion. The 900,000 is going to be is is pretty high. I don't that's just the um so I think we either need to spend it on things that need to be done or not all of it of course or I mean what do we have for um 26 for total project costs you know 300. >> Yeah. 160 plus 15 plus 15. >> Yeah. going over 300. >> What do we take in every year when we >> take in about 435? >> Yeah. So, even with what we're doing next year, we're still not even going to be dipping into our fund. We're just going to have more. >> If we do do all the project balances on on page four there, um it just matters if we do them all. Um because there is salaries that go to the fund and there's the uh street sweeping that goes to the fund and other things that if we do everything we should spend about 540 and bring in 460 so we should spend down 80,000 is what projected would be and then if we ever want to I mean some of the projects we have with the streets you know we we bond for and usually just do a project fund we could do a contri contribution from the storm water fund to you know if there's a year when All of a sudden their storm water is a couple hundred thousand right Gary or so there's ways to to spend it. It's just [clears throat] >> and as we move forward here now too a chance this year but we are looking at doing more ditch projects reditching cleaning shaving that type stuff. Um culver cleaning and that type stuff. So as that goes through that comes fun. So um as we go forward we're going to try to be getting to more and more of this as we have in the past. Uh [clears throat] so it will be starting to use >> so but our our fund balance for the general general fund balance is between 35 and 50%. And here if I'm reading this this is like 200%. >> At this point in time it would be >> give or take. Yeah. >> I guess we that to me is is a bit much. So even even if in the future so let's say this year we're saying total expenditure is 542,000 we really our fund balance in this account should be more like two or 300,000 if I'm doing the math correctly >> uh enterprise funds in a perfect world you should have one ratio is more what we've been told by Ellers and stuff usually like >> we should have about 500 >> I think that'd be a fair assessment >> I don't have a lot of context but regardless last two months we've had $100,000 projects kind of pop up. How long is that? >> We've done a few $100,000 projects over the years like on Morning View and stuff. I mean, but it's every so often. It's not like every year or whatever. So >> when we um [clears throat] if we have storm water related expenses on future street projects that's also we use these funds to pay that you know or future bond payment and stuff like that. So depending on you know the scope of some projects in the future there could be more storm water but I think what we're [clears throat] proposing is not to increase the the rate. So it's and we can do that holding pattern for as long as you feel comfortable with where we're at for the for the balance. >> Yeah. I I I feel comfortable with this. We're not going to raise it. I'm just wondering how we're going to Yeah, we need to talk about that fun balance. >> I thought we have that. But I thought 450 in my brain was that seemed like a lot of money to be and I was and if that's the case I think every year we look at this we'll look at the fund balance and if it's you know above a certain threshold we just won't adjust the rates and as we do projects that'll slowly come down. >> Okay. >> I don't know of any other way. We have to spend it on storm water stuff. >> Yeah we have to spend it on storm water stuff. So, I guess that's been our discussion um for our third or fourth item. So, I mean, I'll keep that in mind. I We're not going to raise the rates. Absolutely. >> Yeah. And the council does have the discretion to obviously if they ever wanted to trans I mean the general fund's a little low, the storm water's a little high. Everyone gets I mean, it's a little different than like the uh the water fund where you you never will probably want to transfer between water in general because not everyone's on it or whatever. This one is charged to everybody. So it's a there's a little bit of discretion, you know, to if you'd ever want to >> allocate some funds, >> you might want to consider >> Yeah. >> seriously bring up our fund our general fund balance or to offset. Let's let's consider that. >> Sounds like public groups has too. >> Yeah. There will be some coming in [clears throat] the next couple years with our next project coming to be dollar spent on those hand repair. So I believe all the curb replacements that are going to be coming through this project will be through will be paid through that could be useful could use that fun because that's part of some of our advanced systems. >> Okay. Well, let's let's keep that in mind and maybe even take a look at that um next year to see what we might want to do. Like I said, you could even use it to offset your money in. So all right. Okay. So we're okay not missing the storm water. uh recycling time. >> All right. So, that begins on uh page seven. And um recycling's a different story, which whether that's probably better from a perspective or or whatever. Um this one for I guess historical, we probably had a couple hundred or we did have about a $200,000 balance um right around probably 2019 20 sort of COVID time. And um the contractual rate back in 2020 went up quite a bit. So we've been actually spending down and we've been charging less than our contract is I guess and then we also have some administrative costs a little bit of salary and I mean cleanup day we do and such. So um so that one you know the balance has kept coming down to you know 50 60,000 and potentially even by year end probably more you know 30 40,000 or whatever. So, um, I guess what was proposed in the packet here was to do a $2 increase from $16 a quarter to $18 a quarter and get it so it at least covers the 579 charge from waste management for 2026. And then obviously there's a little bit like I mentioned some expenditures for them and a little bit of salary time and some other costs operational costs that basically um you know we'd at least be more breaking even versus projected versus spending down. So >> I don't know if that seems logical or makes sense. And um I don't know I guess even just to piggyback on like our our sewer discussion from last meeting. I think that's proposed to go up $8. This would be two. So for the people that just have sewer storm and recycling, their bill would go from 165 a quarter to 175 which >> probably is is manageable. I think it's like a 6% increase or something or whatever. So 67%. So when you look at those three three services added together. So >> I don't know if anyone has any questions, [clears throat] but that's >> I guess what staff would recommend for for this fund. >> We confident that continue to come. It should that they've been putting more of a um emphasis on or they were for a while on organics or whatever and allocating more to the uh that portion, but they've seem to level off or ease off on that somewhere. They were they're still giving a decent amount for just what they call the basic score grant, which is for your general recycling program. So, I think that should >> we should have gotten to say a credit because we offer our tactics. remember they said that we would they would reduce our our grant dollars if we didn't offer organics. >> Well, I think it would have kept going down because the portion I think it used to be like it was a hundred Z it was all the store grant and then organics and they they're going to keep bumping up the organics portion to a higher portion and it's also based I think on how much organics we collect not just the grant um that we offer it. So I think we've got I don't even know five ten people that religiously use the organics. So we really don't get much from the organics piece of the grant I guess >> but we still get a little bit because we offer it and I guess we are providing the service. And >> you're estimating or you know for sure that we're going to get 14,000. Yeah, that should be pretty. I mean, yeah, based on the [clears throat] historical and as well as looks like there was some related to the >> like clean up day. Yeah. Yeah. Pick up day. Yep. >> Yeah. And that's it would be nice. Yeah. Yeah. And the hard part we sort of it's hard to charge people overly much for that because we you know it's like we're bringing like a cubic yard of gunk or stuff or whatever and if we start to charge too much. So we we pretty much operate that almost at a we try to break even but >> county should give us a credit. >> Oh yeah, [laughter] you know we should talk to them. >> Yeah. I wouldn't have to. I'll do a cleanup. We do have obviously more service for our residents. >> So I don't know if that >> does that question. >> Sorry. All right. Um I got a question. >> All right. >> All right. And then the last one is the uh cable fund which doesn't really have a uh a fee that's a committee charges residents directly but it it obviously has the franchise fees which keep dwindling over the years as far as uh what we receive from like you know mainly media comment. Medco is starting to kick in a little bit. >> Do they have any idea what kind of franchise fees >> we get like a few hundred bucks? I don't know if it's monthly. I'd have to look. It's it's they're not off the ground too far yet. You know, obviously Mediacom's still our our biggest portion. Um >> you know, they pay quarterly. It used to be >> $15,000 a quarter. Now it's closer to seven or eight, you know, or something and it's it's gone down in the last probably five, eight, 10 years quite a bit, you know, as far as >> what people Yeah. So our annual revenue used to be 60 70,000. Now we're lucky if it's 30, 40 or so. Um and we used to yeah we've obviously done the I mean the big brunt of the fund or the best thing we did with this fund was obviously the big expansion project or you know providing broadband you know in conjunction with midco and obviously that helped you know we had our city contribution to that and then the uh basically we're the expenditures we allocate to the fund is sort of stayed you know we need to drop that more and I'm going to incorporate that more even more into the 26 budget there might be a small transfer or need to do a year end You can see it's on a negative balance right now. The fund um >> what do we I mean do we [clears throat] I'm trying to think of we have to use the fund for a specific purpose, >> right? >> The way we've got it for communication and education. >> Yeah. So we pretty much use it for I mean we we pay like um yeah for communications we pay it for I mean we've done council the upgrades have been sort of a cost in the last several years to what was the project there recently >> it's like 15 I think at the end of the day but I think you're referring to the peg money needs to be related to hardware and and things related to us broadcasting but that's baked into that we spend more than >> the peg [clears throat] portion on hardware >> but the other cable fund is for I mean we been using it for communications and and that kind of thing. So, our newsletter and and our website and things like that. So, what I'm getting at is if it were to go away completely, it still would be in a general >> Yes. Yeah. >> general expense. And years ago, we did have this these activities coming out of the general fund. And then we, you know, obviously set up this fund to sort of track it better and whether it's I don't now that the revenue's gone slow, whether it's still valid to still have the fund or whether it's still ultimately the general fund is going to have to make up the difference. >> Um, so I don't know. I guess for now, um, we'll probably, you know, keep the fund and just keep monitoring it and, you know, adjusting the expenditures through the general fund accordingly. So, less there's a lot of trust um because >> because they they basically self-report how many people have video connections and then we get a we get a portion of that >> so it's small >> it is per account I can't remember what it is um >> I have to look at the franchise agreement >> but it is it's like maybe two bucks or something like that per account per month that we get that goes into this fund and then uh that's only for video services. So if they just have internet, that fee goes away. So a lot of people are switching from cable to just streaming and just using internet and that then we don't capture any of that. So that's why it's been going down. Um I don't know what >> 10 10% a year or so. >> Helping that really? >> No. No. And they have they have the ability to offer video services like Metroet doesn't. They also provide Frontier doesn't they can't do video services. So Midco and Mediacom are the only two in the community that can do video. But a lot of people are even Midco is transitioning to all streaming. So like instead of having a cable box and it kind of it's FCC regulated. It all comes down to if you have a cable box in your house or not. And Midco is actually going away from even having the physical cable box to just an app on their on their on your TV that they can access. So that'll eventually all just kind of go away and it'll just all be streaming. It'll all feel like the same, but it'll be through the internet. >> Um so the only kind of begs the question I know we have lease agreements with some of the um cell phone providers on our towers. We need to be looking at that to see maybe we maybe they need to be paying more because a lot of the cell phone providers offer a lot of these services now and they're getting a whole lot more money than they used to get. So I think we should be able to capture some of that. So I'm just think they're thinking the opposite. So they want they they they're trying to renegotiate the contracts before the end of the term to be less >> under the guys that they're going to pull out. Um and we just Yeah, that's what we said. So um and we've talked about it at city council, I think one time. Um and it's we have this pretty good agreement that has some adder, you know, CPI adder every year. >> So we're getting, you know, and at the end of that term, they can choose to renew or not or renegotiate. They'll likely renegotiate, but I don't think we're going to >> Well, they'd have to build another tower somewhere. >> Well, they just spent a lot of time installing equipment on a tower. >> Yeah. >> And then if they got out of the contract, they'd have to spend a lot of time taking all that down. >> Services. >> Um well, AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile. >> Yeah. So, each tower has a separate lease agreement or each location. >> [clears throat] >> Lakeside does and that's a little different because that's that was kind of the broadband roll out get internet to people so we gave them a little deal >> right okay I just thought I'd mention that because I think that's >> keeping keeping that in mind >> okay >> um so we're not really going to do we don't need anything regarding the cable thing we just have to understand that we invite them to transfer some funds in or out in order to make that >> yeah basically at least the what we've been basically salaries >> question. So, I heard from two Manista residents. We don't have a lot of sidewalks here in Manista, but uh we spent a lot of money making our roads look beautiful and Midco I believe has spray painted where they're going to do work on sidewalks with bright neon orange marks. I'm quite sure they have to do some kind of marking, but it's permanent marking. it doesn't it doesn't go off and I might have been looked doesn't it doesn't go off as I called um and they said well there's certain colors used for certain types of um procedures >> well it depends on the utility that's in the ground that's what they're marking correct to make sure that they don't get a gas line of course >> but I can't imagine that it looks like the CDM on your sidewalk it doesn't look good and and they say well over a here. No, it it fades. Does it fade by >> hasn't uh >> bright orange and like every 8 ft this it's not and I looked at I was like that's bad and it does look like graffiti on your side. Let's um let's put that our cactus down see what can be done. And all I wanted out too and um because I'm pretty sure they don't spray bright orange on every sidewalk and everything >> orange marks for when the utility companies come out to mark for your cable, your phone, fiber, optics and stuff like that. So, but uh lucky companies like us too when we put our loc white then everything else red is poly yellow gas that the market paint we use same everybody else uses and it's um use and vanguard um which are companies that do the loc but we all use >> pretty much the same thing you know what I mean it's it's a tempor birthday. >> It's not temporary. So, >> it's going to last so long while >> two years. Two years. >> Well, is that benefit then having a gap? >> So, so what about if when the work is done, they remove the graffine on your side? >> Who's responsible for doing that? something that's marking or the if it's yellow, say it's you calling because you're going to come in and put something in your yard, you call to locate, they come out and mark them. Who's going to come back and do it? Are you going to be responsible if you're doing most stuff in your yard? They marked it and put it on there as a homeowner. Uh the company that's coming through, are they going to be responsible for clearing it or is the company working for the gas company for Excel? I mean, that's kind of question. All I'm not trying to take up a lot of time on this, but it does look really bad. I was surprised. And the question I would have is, okay, when the work is done, do they notify the residents? And then can the residents go out and have it power washed or sand blasted off their sidewalks? Because I was told it's illegal to move. Of course, you wouldn't want to remove those marks, but that's a that's defacing a really pretty sidewalk. in a really pretty neighborhood. So, I'm wondering if there's something we can talk about in your office. Can you help me with that? >> Yeah, I think um I think one thing we do need to do is we need to look at the state one locate requirements and I just did a quick search with that because that I'm not aware of what the requirements are. That's certainly something to make sure that we're in line with test. Yeah. Because if we did straighten that, we would be responsible if something happened. We could be liable. So it's it's a liability issue. >> Sure. It just seems reasonable. But it's not. I understand. Thank Um, so maybe um we can check and see if or when it could be removed and if it could who would I I don't I don't think we can you know I don't want to put it also on the homeowners. I mean why you know so it's kind of a situation. If you can just do some research on it and then maybe put it in an FYI kind of summary so that we you know you know what the information that would be good. um some of us that don't have sidewalks in front of our house, you know, don't it doesn't pertain to us and we don't see it. [clears throat] It's more if you're in a neighborhood and there are sidewalks being can be done, right? Um okay. Um so next we have so let's see what else the cable side lane uh the drainage discussion and Allison are you going to give us an update? I'd be happy to. So, uh, since this was last discussed with the council, um, Gary's reached out to, uh, a contractor that does that trenchless work. Um, and we're meeting that individual tomorrow to take a look at the to take a look at the project area. Um, that contractor indicated just based on description of the going to be about 12 >> 15 >> 15,000. um and and other um other utilities were giving a higher and and larger range. So, um, so I was hoping, we were hoping we would be able to get the contractor to do this before tonight, but that wasn't case, but that's that's so what we're looking to do is to, um, just get that drain tile connected um, solely to the existing storms. So, and the reason being is just a 4 in rain event, which is what we designed those storm zoos for. That the elevation of the water in that storm zoo is is high at an elevation is high enough that we can get that that dirty tile in there, but we don't want it straight. So we're we're looking at trying to um take addressing the the most pressing issue which is that green on the southwest. So you said 15,000 but then you said utilities. So maybe 15,000 just the drain tile. So I'll just be doing the drain tile connection from the home and surface street and then all of the issues over >> the major issue that we're looking to address is the issue um at the residents at 94 I believe range over the city cave to put in the system back in early 2000s that is when we're looking to justify um rectify get activated. Um once this is done, I will sign up on they will become full ownership of it. As far as the other ones go, I am told um the president owner here at this president at this site. Anything coming forward from now on the the other area that the council, but the only reason that this is being pursued is because it was a uh approved city project back in the day by the council. probably the only reason that we're looking at this particular one any other ones will have to go through the same process they pass but quite frankly it's groundwater effectively we will help with some permit if we can but as far as it goes I you know this is the only reason we're doing this so is because it was documented city project and we're looking to resolve this issue turn it over to them and uh our city >> it's This the house that is having the flooding that I can't remember the numbers 925. Okay. So that's the one that has the flooding issues and >> correct the one that was originally was built to whatever. Yes, that is the right. All right. Any other questions? We'll we'll get some answers on the sidewalk this year to see what could be done to read. All right, we'll see. Um, anything else? Otherwise, we can be a journey for half an hour at 6. >> An hour. >> 6:30. Wow. Wow. Well, can we add anything to the next? [laughter] We can talk about much more. >> Is there anything else that you want to add to the agenda? >> Uh well, I don't have anything, but Allison is looking at me like uh about this baometric survey item that we we punted a few times. I mean, I don't know if we can maybe do a 15 minute teaser on it or or talk about. You haven't gotten any of the information ahead of time. I think it was in the last council pack the work session that I was unable to be. I think it would be a courtesy for the council to be able to read that. Okay. Yeah. Okay. All right. Sounds good. All right. And with that, um, is there a motion to >> Thank you. Is there a second? Second. >> Thank you. All those in favor signify by saying I. opposed. Motion passes and the motion was made by Peter and seconded by Claudia. Thank you. We'll reconvene in