The City of Tarkio Board of Aldermen met Wednesday, July 13, 2022, at 6:00 p.m. at City Hall in Tarkio. Mayor Mark Staten called the meeting to order. The Pledge of Allegiance was recited by all. Roll call was done by Tarkio City Clerk Danielle Madron: aldermen Jeff Agnew, Scott Poppa, Blu Dow, and Andy Riley were all present. Visitors present were: City of Tarkio  employees – Police Chief Tyson Gibbons and Street Superintendent Jamie Quimby; Tarkio Park Board members Ashlee Driskell, Summer Reeves, Paige Agnew, Jennifer Peregrine and Jeff Olson; City Auditor Kenney Hales; Diane Hofer with Olsson; and Tarkio citizens Roger Green, Dallas Prather, and Donnie Dockins.

Mayor Staten asked for the approval of the June 8, 2022, regular meeting minutes and the June 21, 2022, special meeting minutes. Dow made a motion to approve the minutes and the minutes were approved.

Dallas Prather spoke to the board about her concerns with the cars parked on Main Street between 6th and 7th Streets. Prather states that it is a safety hazard and disrupts the flow of traffic to have those vehicles parked there. There is currently a pickup with two flat tires parked on the side of the street. TPD will be taking care of getting that vehicle moved.

Roger Green spoke to the council about what was needed in order for him to put a building on the lot he owns at the corner of 10th and Chestnut. Dow explained he needed to get a building permit, then the zoning board would be contacted and a public hearing would be held, since the lot is not connected to the lot his home is on. Roger will get with Clerk Madron when he is ready to start this process

Diane Hofer with Olsson updated the board on the progress of the hangar project at the Gould Peterson Municipal Airport. The plans for the hangar building are complete and Olsson is ready to advertise for bids for this project. The advertising will begin the first week in August and bids will be accepted until the beginning of September. They are hoping to have the bids ready for the September council meeting. The fuel and apron projects at the airport have been completed and closed out. Any extra funds from those two projects will be transferred over to the new hangar project, which will make the city’s 10% match of funds even less than originally expected. Construction of the hangar building is most likely not going to start until next year.

Kenney Hales, auditor for the city, talked about the completed 2021-2022 audit. Mr. Hales discussed the funds for the airport and the difference they will make to next year’s audit when those numbers aren’t included anymore. Overall, the city is great shape.

Jeff Arp with MIRMA was in town on June 29th and visited the swimming pool. Overall, the pool looks great. There are a few recommendations, but they have already been corrected by the pool staff.

Clerk Madron asked the board about the current mileage pay rate. The city pays employees using their personal vehicles for out-of-town travel at the state mileage rate plus $.10. The current state rate is $.55 per mile. The city currently pays $.65 per mile which is more than the federal mileage rate. The board decided to continue to pay the additional $.10 due to the rising fuel prices. Fuel logs for all city vehicles will be utilized to keep track of the cost of fuel for all city equipment.

Department reports

Blu Dow, City Buildings – The lock on the cleaning closet door at the Community Building fell off. Tommy and Blu Dow worked on getting the door open. Quimby did get the door off, but it will need replaced. Dow will get the door measured and see about replacing it. The front of City Hall has some bricks that need to be tuck pointed. Danny Beckman will be getting the city an estimate. Agnew will be calling another contractor to get an estimate from him as well.

Jeff Agnew, Fire Department – Agnew had nothing to report. Clerk Madron will continue to research ARPA funding usage to possibly help with purchase of a new fire truck.

Andy Riley, Parks and Pool – Paint for the zero entry has come in and the pool will be painted on Saturday. The other paint that was put on has made the zero-entry slick to walk on. The new paint will add texture to help with the issues. There is a slide at Niedermeyer Park that needs to be replaced. It is currently closed off. The Park Board will be looking into options for replacing it. There is still a leak at the pool. Council members will be looking into finding someone to come look at the pool and see if they can find the leak. There is a possibility for some improvements to be made at the tennis courts. More information will be presented on that at a later date. There will also be maintenance logs done on all parks equipment and vehicles.

Scott Poppa, City Streets – Quimby’s Report:

• Repairs/Equipment – No major repairs.

• Brush Pile – This area is being used frequently and properly. It is getting full and will be ready to burn as soon as the pool closes.

• Ditches and Tubes – Quimby has put in several locates and cleaned some ditches that had silted in. They have several more to do and at least one more tube to replace.

• Coldpatch – The cold patch has arrived and is being used.

• Storm Damage – There was some storm damage on the morning of June 17, 2022. A tree was struck by lightning at 13th and Chestnut. Evergy sent the company that trims trees for them to clear the limbs away from the power lines so it was safe for the city and Mike Poppa to work around. The city assisted the Parks Department with the clean up of a tree that had to be taken out at the old school house due to storm damage.

• Rip rap pile – Quimby had to stop someone from dumping in this location. They were bringing broken cement from Rock Port and dumping it here. He explained that they couldn’t dump at this location because it was coming from Rock Port and because the city can’t allow dumping at this location anymore. It is on land that the city does not own. The city has been asked to not dump anymore and get what is there removed as soon as possible. The city has gotten rid of well over half of what was once there.

• Street Sign Project – Last year, the city started replacing missing and damaged street name signs. The crew completed sign replacement of 1st to 5th. This year they are doing 6th to 10th. Quimby has all posts needed and the hardware and has ordered the name plates. Next year, they will be doing 11th to 13th.

Chris Hogue, Animal Control – Hogue had nothing to report.

Tyson Gibbons, Police Department – Chief Gibbons looked into the cost of new hand-held radios for the PD and the Fire Department, with the possibility of using ARPA funding to purchase new ones. The estimated cost is $108,288.56. Once more information about ARPA fund usage is collected, this topic will be revisited. The K-9 golf tournament earned about the same amount of money as last year. Once all the online payments and donations come through, there will be a final amount on money earned.

City Clerk Madron, Financials – No questions were asked. Clerk Madron reminded the council she would be attending the annual MIRMA conference the following week.

A break was taken at 7:20 p.m. and the break was over at 7:25 p.m.

The meeting moved into executive session per Chapter 610.021 Section 3. Hiring, firing, disciplining or promoting a particular employee, etc. The meeting later moved out of executive session and back into regular session.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:15 p.m. The next regular meeting will be August 10, 2022, at 6:00 p.m.