January 6, 2025

The Jetmore City Council met in regular session on January 6, 2025. Mayor Bill Goebel called the meeting to order and led the group in the Pledge of Allegiance. Roll wall was answered by Councilmen Cole Buffo, Jeff Channell, Charles Leet, & Mike Thornburg. Councilman Neeley was absent. Also attending was Administrator Michael Ort, City Clerk Casey Dansel & Sheriff Jared Walker.

Councilman Buffo made a motion to approve the consent agenda containing the November minutes & Appropriation Ordinance #2024-12. Councilman Channell seconded the motion; vote unanimous.

SHERIFF’S REPORT:  Sheriff Walker gave his monthly report. Sheriff’s office has been completing security checks at local businesses at night. Sheriff gave an update on the monthly traffic citations.

CITY CLERK REPORT: Clerk Dansel presented the council with information regarding the savings account money we are moving to CD’s. Farmers State Bank will need a copy of the minutes to proceed. City Attorney requested that Casey reach out to the auditors to make sure everything we want to do is permissible for a municipality.

BUSINESS ITEMS:

Councilman Channell made a motion to approve Resolution 2025-01, the annual GAAP Waiver. Councilman Leet seconded the motion; vote unanimous.

Councilman Thornburg made a motion to approve Resolution 2025-02, The Annual Jetmore Fee Resolution, setting all city fees for the year. Councilman Buffo seconded the motion; vote unanimous.

City Administrator, Michael Ort informed the board that we have received 4 proposals from consultants for the Main Street project. Councilman Thornburg made a motion to appoint Mayor Goebel & Mr. Ort to score the proposals. Councilman Leet seconded the motion; vote unanimous.

Council discussed staff pay increases. Councilman Channell made a motion to increase pay to Jared Borger & Derek Weber a dollar and a half per hour. Councilman Buffo seconded the motion; vote unanimous.

Councilman Thornburg made a motion to increase pay to Brian Beil, Chad Burns & Larry Fagen by 2 ½%. Councilman Leet seconded the motion; vote unanimous.

Councilman Channell made a motion to increase pay for Dan Shuler to $18/hr and Linda Hubin to $15/hr. Councilman Buffo seconded the motion; vote unanimous.

Councilman Channell made a motion to increase pay for Connie Olson to $18/hr. Councilman Thornburg seconded the motion; vote unanimous.

Councilman Channell made a motion to increase Casey Dansel’s salary to $40,000/yr. Councilman Buffo seconded the motion; vote unanimous.

Councilman Buffo made a motion to increase pay for Michael Ort 2 ½ %. Councilman Thornburg seconded the motion. Vote unanimous.

Councilman Buffo made a motion to adjourn the regular meeting for the Annual Land Bank Report. Councilman Leet seconded the motion; vote unanimous.

Mayor Goebel opened the meeting of the Land Bank. Mr. Ort presented the council with the Annual Land Bank Report. Councilman Buffo made a motion to adjourn the meeting of the Land Bank and reconvene the regular meeting of the city council. Councilman Leet seconded the motion; vote unanimous.

CITY ADMINISTRATOR REPORT:   

*Administrator Ort presented his travel, training, and meeting schedule for January.

*End of Year Fund Health Report-Mr. Ort presented the end of year 2024 fund health report.

*Grant Application-Mr. Ort informed the mayor and council that he had recently submitted a grant application with the Kansas Corporation Commission for funds from the Department of Energy to change out the 90 poles that were red tagged in the most recent audit of our electrical system. We received an estimate from KMEA-Mid-States of $546,820. The grant does have a local match portion, but there is also a $200 million dollar fund established by the state of Kansas, administered through the Department of Commerce, called the Build Kansas Fund, that is designed to satisfy the local match for these sorts of projects. If our project is approved for funding under the two programs, we would get this project done, making our electric distribution system much more safe and reliable, without city budget funds.

*Main Street Project-The Main St. project has been fully programmed at KDOT and I was notified last month that it was approved to proceed to the next step, which is to send out Requests for Qualifications (RFQs) to engineers for design and project management. Under the project rules we are required to send this out to at least five engineering firms. To aid in this step KDOT has provided a list of pre-approved contractors to local participants.

*Work Comp Claim-We had a work comp claim in December. In the incident one of our employees was hit in the mouth while working with the vac trailer. The injury was timely reported and submitted to KMIT for processing.

*KCAMP Renewal-The KCAMP renewal was received in December. The increase was as expected, forecasted to be 10%. It came in at 10.2%, for an annual contribution of $48,005.

GOVERNING BODY COMMENTS:

Mayor Goebel discussed the current issue of the beach area at the city lake and what we could do to improve it before summer.

Councilman Channell made a motion to adjourn. Councilman Buffo seconded the motion; vote unanimous. Meeting was adjourned at 8:21p.m.