A regular meeting of the Wykoff City Council was held December 13. Council members in attendance included Lyle Morey, Ryan Breckenridge, and Kaleb Himli. City Clerk Becky Schmidt and Deputy Clerk Luan Hare also attended. Due to the absence of Mayor Al Williams, Ryan Brechenridge (Mayor pro tem) led the meeting.
As mentioned in the city’s December newsletter, Wykoff has been in search of a new member to join the Zoning Committee. Despite ads in the newspaper and on Facebook, no interested persons have come forward. Becky Schmidt pointed out that two additional members will have terms ending at the end of December, so the committee is really struggling to stay afloat. She stated, “We did a poll of other cities in the 500 population, and most of them stated that they can’t get enough volunteers to have a dependable zoning (committee).” She said a suggestion is for Wykoff to simply have two members of the city council serve as the Zoning “committee” as a part of their council duties, and those two would then bring recommendations to the full council for consideration as needed. No formal action was taken at this time, but the council plans to return to the topic during the January council meeting.
Immediately prior to the regular council meeting, a public hearing was held on the topic of the city’s proposed ordinance dealing with Inflow and Infiltration Compliance with the MPCA (Minnesota Pollution Control Agency). One citizen addressed the council, asking what it means to his plans to sell a home in Wykoff.
Becky Schmidt responded, saying, “It has to be inspected before the property closes. If they find a problem, and it has to be fixed, you can place $5,000 in escrow and let the new homeowner take care of it, and whatever is left out of that $5,000 then of course it would be returned to you. Or you can fix it… This is just making sure that the lateral line from your residence to the main is in good condition.” After discussion, the council voted to adopt the new ordinance as proposed.
The council next discussed the possibility of setting up a Storm Sewer Fund. Schmidt explained that, “The city already has an ordinance for a storm water drainage utility fund… So what most towns do is, on your utility bill you’ll see a $2 or $3 charge that goes into this fund… which would give the city about $650 a month that we could put into this fund and restrict its use just for incidents when they come up.” She said the need for sewer repairs often comes up suddenly, and could otherwise create budgetary problems if no money is set aside for such purposes. No council action was taken at this time, but it may be on the agenda again in January.
Wykoff’s contract with Waste Management for garbage collection was discussed. The current contract will be coming up for possible renewal, and Schmidt said the city has received several complaints from citizens, so it might be worth considering other providers. After discussion, the council chose to serve notice to Waste Management of not automatically enewing the contract, and will open up for any interested bidders.
A request from Wykoff Commons was discussed, Schmidt informed the council that the city recent discovered that the Commons property had a large amount of water usage that had not previously been recorded. She said one new meter at the Commons is hooked up to just one bathroom at the Commons, but the rest of the building is using water, and it runs through an old water meter, which is still working, but must be read manually. She said from December 2018 to the present, roughly 40,000 gallons of water were used but not billed for until recently, which led to a billing of around $760. The Commons has requested to be allowed to have the balance recouped over several years time, but the council felt that was not a wise option. The council voted to offer the Commons a payment plan in which $200 per month will be collected until the balance is settled. Wade Baker asked what the city will do going forward; Schmidt said the old meter will be manually read once every quarter.
There was discussion that the city is still looking for a backup snow plow driver. Ryan Breckenridge asked if the position requires a special license. Schmidt answered, “It does not. It takes some hands-on learning… They would be an employee of the city, on an on-call basis.” The council approved hiring for this position.
Wykoff’s next city council meeting will be Monday, January 10 at 7 p.m. at city hall.
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