Minutes - Council Work Session - 07/26/2022

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Councilmember Heineman stated he would be in favor of front loading as much of the work as possible as long as they take into consideration what Councilmember Musgrove stated about not having all the work come back on line 30 years from now. Councilmember Specht asked for feedback on that because it was a good point. City Engineer/Interim Public Works Director Westby replied they had that discussion at Public Works. He stated there are some options they are looking at. He stated they gave it a name “reclamation rehabilitation.” They are looking at doing a recon light on some of the roads that they can where they are reclaiming the road as they do now, recycling the pavement and putting it back down as base but instead of putting three and half inches of pentamerous on top, doing one layer to keep the cost down. He stated they would be trying to minimize costs off the roadway, less boulevard restoration and things like that. He stated they would be focusing on rehabbing the pavement. He stated they could get the same work done for 50-85% of the cost, however the life of the pavement is going to be less than the 60 years, more like somewhere between 25 and 40 years. He stated if they did that on some of the roads it would space the bubble out. Councilmember Specht asked if the quality would be high enough that aren’t going to be potholes every year. He asked if for 20 years it would be like a new road and would it be worth it. City Engineer/Interim Public Works Director Westby replied that would generally be what they had out to start with on the streets and they generally got 30 to 40 years on those streets so it would basically be replacing like with like right now. Councilmember Musgrove asked if those roads would have to qualify for certain conditions in order to do that, they wouldn’t just pick ten miles of roads and do them that way and not have issues with deterioration. Mayor Kuzma commented he wasn’t happy with this plan at all and didn’t support it. He stated he was for getting the roads fixed but thought this is going to be a continual increase on the levy and didn’t know how to stop it. He stated the property values have gone up 26%. He stated he thought the franchise fee worked well to raise $2.1 for the time they were on, they had very few complaints. He suggested putting on the ballot to vote for it and agree putting a set amount such as $200 that everyone would put towards roads. He stated that way they could put the levy back down to a manageable level and the people would have voted and want to have it done. He stated if they keep going the way they are going there is going to be looking at a 15-20% tax increases from here on out which he thought was unacceptable. He stated he didn’t support this. Councilmember Woestehoff commented he had almost the same thoughts at Public Works but he changed his mind; he was thinking a temporary solution. He stated the down side is that there is an advantage right now because they are on property values and everyone’s property values are going up which means the City takes in more money. He stated although he wasn’t happy with it in terms of a transition and they are taking in less last year, there is potentially a higher dollar value that the City is going to get in this year and because of inflation it will continue to go up. He stated the problem is it isn’t that the City is gaining any extra money at that point, the problem is that the roads are also going to continue to also cost an equivalent. Because it is such a crazy environment City Council Work Session /July 26, 2022 Page 15 of 19