The Lennox City Council met Monday, September 9 in the Lennox Boardroom. Council members heard agenda items including prison wastewater, Museum updates, and TIF districts.
The Council heard the first reading of Ordinance 653 at the August 26 meeting on passing the annual appropriations ordinance by the end of September.
“The expenditures for Fund 212 have been changed since that time, so this is second penny fund to reflect two approvals that I anticipate tonight. Those changes include moving the $150,000 budgeted for the museum roof and window project this year to next year and moving what was $50,000 for this year but is not approximately $90,000 moving that to next year because that’s when the balance of the project will be due even though we order it this year. Given that the changes are already budgeted for 2024 except for the portion of the playground, I would suggest that it’s not a substantial change to the ordinance and that a first reading is not required for the second time,” said City Administrator, Nate Vander Plaats.
Motion approved.
The City of Lennox is considering a partnership with the South Dakota Department of Corrections to meet the wastewater needs of the new men’s prison.
“Stockwell is here tonight to talk a little bit about what they think we might need here. We’re not going to talk necessarily the cost of that yet because I want to review these early estimates for what they think we’ll need,” Vander Plaats said.
John Brown from Stockwell joined the meeting to give the council a better understanding of what the partnership would be like.
“There’s some details that we probably need corrections or upgrades to your existing plant anyway, and some of those things we are going to need to do in the next five years and some of the things we have talked about in the past in a facility plan with you or an equalization expansion so we can absorb some of the high flows that we have with infiltration. Basin covers, as you know, your existing basins have a hard time with cold weather and by adding some basin covers on there; there would be some ability to keep that warmth into the wastewater. I know you have done a fair amount of repairs to the existing diffusers, but those are something that over 10 or 15 year time period, you need to replace all of them because they get weathered and they get brittle,” Brown said.
If the City of Lennox were to take the Department of Corrections waste, a separate smaller tank would be installed to be blended with the existing waste. A big concern for the project is the capacity.
“Your existing plant capacity was at about 670,000 gallons a day, your average flow per day is about 180,000 to 200,000 a day and to get to that 670,000 conditions have to be perfect, they have to have consistent loading, consistent flow rate coming to your plant. The Department of Corrections waste would be somewhere between 180,000 to 220,000 gallons a day,” he said.
Vander Plaats asked for a motion authorizing up to $5,000 of services related to DOC sewer connection from the current year budget. Alderman Daugherty has concerns about the ability to grow the city industrially if the prison is added on. “I’m very curious to see what the upgrades look like so we can at least have opportunities to still grow from an industrial perspective,” he said.
Motion approved.
The City of Lennox issued a notice to bidders for the 2024 Museum roof and window project. “Bids for the project were opened Thursday, August 29 and despite numerous contractors expressing interest and attending the pre-bid meeting, only one bid was received and it was over approximately $40,000 over architects estimate. We believe it’s due to the short window we have had to complete the roof work, we did though grant additional time for the windows early on. Given the substantially higher than anticipated bid, I have discussed with our consultant architects the possibility of bidding again this winter, probably November, and give it a long completion window in 2025,” Vander Plaats said.
Motion to reject all bids approved unanimously.
Vander Plaats informed the council there is interest in the adoption of a formal bonus policy for employees who go above and beyond what is expected of a position.
“Best practice would dictate that such bonuses are issued under an approved policy and that is included here for your review and approval. A few highlights of that are the approval process and amount that’s cap at 2.5 per cent of gross salary or annual compensation and making it clear to folks that when those are made, that we make it public through publication of that monthly pay report,” he said.
Motion approved.
The City of Lennox has worked throughout 2024 to identify a new playground to purchase for installation in Westerman Park.
“This is one of the goals that the Park Board identified last year for 2024. The playground represented here was approved by the Park Board at their August meeting. Slight modifications were made in early August to maximize grant funding, increase features for children between 2 and 5, and minimize cost change. The current playground would be dismantled by City staff as well as the two older climbing features that are straight East and then Southeast of the current playground,” he said. VanderPlaats requested a motion to approve the purchase of Westerman Park Option 5 Playground. Motion approved.
The City of Lennox anticipates future TIF requests from developers as the community continues to expand.
“As we’ve grown and continue to develop, I anticipate a lot more requests for TIF districts to come into the city. We do not currently have a policy for how we handle those requests or for whether we would approve them. It’s kind of on an ad hoc basis. We’ve not been home to a lot of TIF’s, it’s just really been Countryside and Wilson Trailer and I think those are both sponsored by the county if I remember right. I have been seeing some developers have been requesting in similar situations in recent history. I prefer to get ahead of the demand on those requests and adopt a policy ahead of time,” he said.
Vander Plaats asked for a motion to approve a Tax Increment Financing Policy.
Motion approved.
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