City Council hears Solar Farm proposal, certifies election results, and approves HR consultant

The Lennox City Council met Monday, April 14 at Lennox City Hall. Mayor Danny Fergen and council members heard agenda items, including a solar farm presentation, a newly elected alderman, and human resources proposals. 

With no visitors to be heard, Mayor Fergen asked City Administrator Nate Vander Plaats if there was anything he’d like to draw attention to on the consent agenda. 

“Two proposals, outside of the slurry seal agreement, one for painting the pool, that was a budget expense for this year, as well as a proposal from Raztech to get Wi-Fi to both concession stands before the baseball and softball season starts,” he said. 

Vander Plaats noted that Raztech came in under budget, but wiring costs may eat up those savings. Two resolutions were also in the consent agenda, Resolution 2025-04-14-01 Amended schedule of salaries and wages and Resolution 2025-04-14-02 Amended schedule of fines and fees. 

“The two resolutions, ones is amend the schedule of salaries and wages just to reflect all the changes that have been made since last winter when we had a number of vacant positions or position turnover and amended schedule fines is just to memorialize the negative surcharge that’s on utility bills now,” Vander Plaats added. 

The consent agenda was approved unanimously.

Vander Plaats left City Council Vacancy in old business in case there was any further discussion on the topic. 

“I wanted to keep this on here just in case there was any discussion for you to have up to the point where we’re actually going to appoint the Ward I vacancy, so I’ll have it on here this meeting, next, and the first meeting in May assuming that there may be some discussion,” Vander Plaats said. 

Vander Plaats discussed with the commission one possible applicant and asked if any had reached out to the gentleman. Many members of the Council stated that they have not connected with the individual yet, but are aware that there is an applicant. 

US Solar has contacted the City of Lennox regarding a potential Conditional Use Permit for a solar farm North of Lennox. 

“This will be outside our boundary, but within our planning jurisdiction, so while we don’t officially have a say in whether it’s issued by Lincoln County Planning Commission, the commission is traditionally given way when we choose to voice a position on these types of applications,” Vander Plaats said. 

Luke Gildemeister of US Solar was present to give information to the council. “We are based out of the Midwest and we have 85-plus projects that are running already. We try to develop projects that provide utilities with electricity generation that they say that they need and then we want to be good neighbors, so integrate into the community as well as help increase the local tax base,” Gildemeister said. 

The location of the proposed project is to the Northwest, just North of 277th Street. 

If the proposed project comes to fruition, it would interconnect to the substation that is located on Boynton and Elm. Alderman Vandriel asked if the facility would stay under US Solar’s’ ownership to sell the energy to Excel Energy. 

“That is exactly how it works, yes, it would be a LLC under the US Solar umbrella, and we would have an interconnection agreement,” Gildemeister responded. 

Mayor Fergen thanked Gildemeister for coming and reminded the council it was an informational presentation, and no action was called for.

State law requires the City Council to canvass the election within seven days, and Vander Plaats gave the council an update.

 “Canvassing the election is simply the act of certifying the results and declaring a winner in an election, it requires a review of results by the city council, in this case, it’s very simple, a 37 to 32 vote. If there is a question of wanting to count those again or for the council to see the ballots we can do that, but there is a pretty clear winner in this case,” he said. 

Laura Thiesse was declared the winner of the Ward III 2205 election.

The City of Lennox budgeted $10,000 for an update to the City’s Housing Study in 2025. 

“The most recent housing study was completed in 2019, since that time, obviously a lot has changed here in terms of housing. We try to do this every five years, we did not do it last year, and I think we’re really due for one,” Vander Plaats said. 

Traditionally, the South Dakota Housing Authority Housing Needs Study program is used. The program provides a 50 per cent grant on a project. The second option is a private consultant, PorchLight, a consultant partner with two metro growth alliances to provide a more detailed study. 

“I think the 20119 study was sufficient for our needs, but it provided very little Lennox specific information, a lot of was pulled from old stuff,” Vander Plaats said. 

The council agreed to table the discussion until more research can be done on the two companies and the services they provide.

The City of Lennox needs an outside consultant for human resources and compensation issues. 

“A couple years ago we discussed the possibility of an HR consultant, similar to that used by other communities that have a number of employees but not enough to justify a full-time HR position,” Vander Plaats said. Vander Plaats told the council that he has reached out to Alternative HR to ask for quotes on their services. Vander Plaats stated that for the past four or five years, he has done the compensation study and he would like to hand off those job duties to a HR consultant. 

“It was probably sufficient the first couple of years, then I think we’ve gotten more complex and I think there’s a lot better information out there that I don’t have access to that an HR consultant this size does,” he said. 

Vander Plaats estimates the costs at around $6,000 for this year. Motion to accept the proposal with Alternative HR was passed unanimously.