05-08-2023 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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MINUTES OF THE ORONO CITY COUNCIL MEETING April 24, 2023 6:00 o’clock p.m. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Page 2 of 10 Finance Director Olson explained that according to the contract, if there is an overage, the City would pay its percentage of the operating budget. The invoice just says $46,010.50 as Orono’s share of the overage. Olson said he contacted Long Lake for some detail. The amount includes $15,000 for the payout of the fire chief’s unpaid sick and vacation when he left; an overage of fire call pay of $21,000; winterizing the Zodiac boat; $17,000 for training for eight new fire fighters; and $5,600 for travel/mileage reimbursement where he said they normally budget zero. Olson said the fire call overage is nearly 50 percent which doesn’t necessarily make sense. He said he would like more information on that and the training and travel. Johnson asked if under the existing contract the City is obligated to pay any overage they charge, whether Long Lake accrues for pay-outs for time off and whether there have been overages in previous years. Olson said that is how the contract reads. Last year the overage was $15,000. He added that Orono accrues for payout of benefits but evidently Long Lake does not. Leah Koch, attending for City Attorney Mattick, said she personally has not reviewed the contract but will make a note to clarify the City’s obligations under the contract. Johnson said if everyone's in agreement, he would like to get more details on precisely what the City of Orono is being asked to pay and whether it is operational or capital improvements. Johnson moved, Crosby seconded, to approve the claims and bills minus the Fire Protection Services 2022 Fire Overages in the amount of $46,010.50. VOTE: Ayes 4, Nays 0. 4. APPROVAL OF NEXT DRAFT WORK SESSION AGENDA Walsh said he pulled this off the consent agenda because there were a couple of things planned for the May 22 work session that he did not think belonged there. He said he would move to postpone the Community Survey Discussion to December 11 and delete the meeting decorum discussion because political grievances do not have a place at Council meetings and work sessions. Johnson asked how items are getting on the work session agenda. City Administrator Edwards reminded the Council that having a draft work session agenda approved at the previous Council meeting is a fairly new process. Some items are routine and come up year after year. Other items are requested by Council members. Walsh and Johnson said they did not think the draft work session agendas should be on consent portion of the agenda because it is necessary for the Council to review the items and vote on them. Benson asked to clarify if the procedure will be to throw out suggestions for the next work session topics at a work session and then vote on them at a Council meeting. She said she was fine with throwing out ideas in the work session and taking the work session draft agenda off consent, because then we can be in agreement about what's coming. She noted that her only question is with regard to work session agenda items. It may be at times that one Council member has ideas or two that are valid ideas, and this is a place to discuss them. Meeting decorum is something that she feels strongly about given what's happening right now in our community. That is something that she thought was worthy of Council time, at least in a work