 OK, it's 4.30. We'll go ahead and call the meeting to order. Roku, Alder Heidemann? Here. Alder Decker? Here. Alder Felde is excused. Alder Athe is excused. And Alder Schelzer, I'm here. If we can all stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. OK, we all know each other. Happy Valentine's Day, everyone. OK, agenda item number five, Approval of Minutes for the January 24th meeting of 2024. Move to approve, taken. Great, any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Chair votes aye. Motion is approved. Agenda item number six, General Ordinance number 402324, an ordinance amending various provisions of the municipal code related to open burning. So as to create additional regulation of open burning within the city, including regulations allowing additional forms of open burning so long as forms are safe approved by the fire department. Who wants this one? You want me to talk? Oh, yeah. All right, so it is extensive. I'm like, there's a lot of open burning somewhere. So quite a bit of what this did was cleaning up some things that the city itself was actually doing, which weren't allowed by ordinance. So there is invasive species burning that happens up at Evergreen and Maywood and under ordinance that actually shouldn't have been allowed, because that's considered open burning. So we added a section of prescribed burns. And that allows for the intent of land restoration, which is what that is, getting rid of the invasive species. The Glacier Lakes Conservatory, they want to do some invasive species burning, so that would allow for that. The island in the river, which was under water for several years, now is not. Almost all the trees that are on there are ash and are dead. Right now, if they wanted to clean that up, their only option was to cut everything down, load it on a boat, take it off the island, and then get rid of it. So all of them, they're surrounded by water, so they could burn it there. So really, it's just cleaning up what the city, largely what the city has been doing, and then allowing it. It is not intended for the average citizen that has brush in their backyard to say, I want to burn this. It's not intended for the average citizen to say, I longer ask my backyard, I want to burn it. There's the permit itself is fairly extensive. It's a combination of what some other departments utilize, so it's not just a, hey, I'm going to be burning my backyard. And then for places like the island, or for Evergreen, or Lakeshore, they fill out an application or? Yep, so there's an application, and I use, the city uses SanTech Consulting to do the burns up at Maywood, and I actually use almost all of what they submit as documentation already for the format for the permit. Got it. So it's including maps of the areas they're going to be burning, the personnel that they're going to have there, the certifications of their personnel, the equipment, their backup plans, all that stuff. Okay, so then they just reach out to the fire department to apply for that, or got it? Yep. Great. Go ahead. And then, Drew? No, for like the bonfires and stuff like that, no, this does not limit, like, I don't know how this is done in the past. I know that Hoover High is always out this big massive one, I mean, is that still, you know? So that is another section in here that is addressed. So coincidentally, the Lutheran High one, their property is partially in the town and partially in the city. So where they have their bonfire is technically the town and it's not even in the city. But under this, that would be allowed. Okay. There was language in here that would allow larger bonfires similar to that, but it was spelled out that it was only allowed at King Park, and that was added in there from my understanding years ago. South High used to have a kind of bonfire. So this expands that a little bit, that it can be allowed, but adds those same stipulations of land restoration, number of adults, extinguishing capability, stuff like that. The other thing that this addresses is we had when there was the, what's it called, Winter Fest. They held it at Fountain Park, like two years where they did the snowman building, stuff like that. They wanted to have some small campfires there for marshmallow roasting and stuff, or technically by ordinance, that wouldn't have been allowed either because there were areas in the parks ordinances that said no burning within the parks unless it was just in the grills. So it addresses that. There are still not fires allowed within the city parks, unless it is part of a park rental or a special event permit for that park itself. So we shouldn't have and we won't have just air and bonfires going on in the city parks. The other thing that it addresses is just some changes in cooking. So right now, grills are not allowed above the first floor of any structure. We added, we have all these beautiful apartment buildings that are built under the newer standards that have sprinklers out on the decks and patios and they weren't allowed to do any sort of grilling. This allows them to have electric grills on there as long as they're sprinkled or it's entirely non-combustible material. So it's a cement siding, it's all metal decks and framework for that. We still didn't want to get the gas grills up there because there's still the risk of people not maintaining them and grease fires. There's been plenty of fires across the country that occur from gas grills and charcoal grills being up on elevated surfaces. The other thing that it does address is the newer patio heaters and the kind of fire pit tables that are propane fuel allowing those in circumserve instances also, again, if they're done safely and with the manufacturer recommendations. Thank you, Chairman. But right now you can't start a pile of brush in your backyard and burn the permission from the fire department. Correct, you cannot, because that is still not going to be allowed. Burning of the lawns is not going to be allowed. Correct. Any of the burning brush, that's all considered yard waste and that's not allowed previously and it's not allowed in this. There's everything in there about burn barrels. Very garbage. Yeah. Not allowed. I know it's not allowed. So that is addressed when it talks about recreational fires. That's, it's spelled out clean wood, no furniture. Yeah. Between the hours of rubbish, no construction materials. All that stays the same, right? 12 p.m. to 12 a.m. Yep. No fires. Yeah. And it doesn't affect the ring size of the back and when Latusky was the chief, they wanted everybody had to come down and they had to make their fire rings so much it can only be 17 inches or? I know it's 36 inches more than, the height shouldn't be more than 18 inches. Yep. Of the fire. Correct. Of the materials being burned. Got it. Okay. So the clean wood shouldn't be higher than 18 inches. Obviously the fire could be a little bit bigger. That language all stayed the same. Can I ask you a question? How will this affect, will this affect North Beach? I see there's some information here with the exception of the city installed rings located at D-Land and North Beach. Nope. So that's saying that those can still be utilized. The pre-installed rings on the beaches can still be utilized and then on the 4th of July, they're still allowed to have fires on the beaches. That's the one day that they're allowed to have them on the beaches, not in the rings. As long as they don't excavate the fires. As long as they what? Don't excavate the fires. And dig down to have fires. So yeah. And they, again, can't be burning branches and garbage. They have to bring in their own clean. I know every summer in my district, I get a lot of phone calls about the fires at D-Land and just like how the, you know, it starts early, right? I think this past year it started, or in 23, it started that summer in like May, you know, towards the end when like all the seniors had senioritis and were ready to be done, you know, they were starting to make fires and getting there early. And then they started to like make their own pits. Yeah. They're only supposed to be within the rings that the city has installed. It's such a hard thing to like also police because it's like, I feel kind of bad. It's like either we add more or we find a different option on how to do that for these students because it's like they, there isn't a lot to do for that age between 13 and 20 here. And so they're like having a bonfire around the beach and like being kids and it feels really hard to also be like, don't do that because I'm also like, come on, they're only like that young ones. When the rings were new, we spent a lot of time doing enforcement down there. And I think that really, we only have that problem for like two weeks in the year. Yeah. It's like those first two weeks of summer when they are really like itching to be down. Yeah. After that, it slowed down, but it was like those first two weeks, I had a lot of focus. And that would be a discussion probably with Joel Kerlin to see if there is a need to add any additional ones. Yeah. Like maybe it's just to start and then, you know, you take a mouth as the summer becomes because more people that are just using the beach for the beach as like a layout and a hangout versus those first two weeks. It's really just for, no one's like hanging out at the beach all day because when they're at school and to school. So they're just having the fires to like have a hangout at the end of the year before they all like go away and get jobs. And that's a good point, I'll bring it up with Joel. Okay. Any other questions? None. Great. Looking for a motion. You wanted a motion to hold. I know it's only to hold if you wanted to make amendments. Okay. All right. Okay. I'm looking for a motion to approve. Move to approve. Second. Great. Any other discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Is there a sign? It's approved. Okay. Agenda item number seven. Resolution number 151-2324. Resolution authorizing the appropriate city officials to enter into a clinical affiliation between the Craft and Police Department and the city of Sheboygan Police Department for the purpose of education and clinical experience of the Grafton Fire Department paramedics. Yes. The agreements between the two municipalities fire departments, not the police paramedics just to clarify the record. Oh, I'm sorry. Did I say police department? That's okay. Okay. Sorry. You're sitting in front of me. No, that's okay. Okay. Do that. Go ahead. It's essentially to allow the new paramedics that Grafton Fire Department has to come up here and get some additional experience, additional ride time with our department to get them additional training. We have the same medical director. So as far as scope of practice license working under, it's the same exact protocols. It's just getting them some additional exposure to calls. Possibly adding to recruit. Potentially. Yes. Potentially. Possibly poaching. Here is always that potential, yes. I got it. It just sounds like a good training opportunity for the Grafton Fire Department that also benefits the city. That's correct. I'm fine. I will make a motion to approve. Second. Great. Any other discussion? All right. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Are you opposed? Chair votes aye. That is approved. Okay. Agenda item number eight, resolution number 153-23-24, a resolution authorizing acceptance of the 24 Wisconsin Bureau of Transportation Safety, Bicycle and Pedestrian Enforcement Grant and establishing the appropriation of the 24 budget for the grants funds received. Okay. Is this your and yours? This one's mine. Yeah. Great. So I was here in May to this same committee. Okay. Pitching the grant last year. So we, the state's offered us 25,000 this year. We've gotten, we got 20,000 last year, 15,000 the year before. We use it to supplement pedestrian bicycle safety, right? We're mostly stopping vehicles that are, that are engaged in the type of behaviors that are engaged in pedestrians and bicyclists. I think it's a good compliment with the DPW's Complete Streets Initiative. You know, the way we're pushing people to use more pedestrian and bicycle forms transportation. And we used it for various things last year. We had deployments out on Michigan Avenue at night because there's a lot of people crossing the street. So, you know, making sure that cars are behaving themselves and the people are behaving themselves when they're crossing the street. We had deployments out around the farmers market, around the 11M series, down at the lakefront for the people that were gathering around the parking lots around road drive and you know, being disorderly with their vehicles. You know, so things that are affecting actual safety and perceived safety on our streets. I am fully in support of this because it makes a big difference when your presence is there. I concur, I think it's really great. It's a good compliment to our Complete Streets program. So I'm really in support of this. Yeah. Do you have any questions? Just one. This is, you got 2015, 2025, next year it'll be 30. You never know. It all, I think it all depends on the pool of departments that want the funds that BOTS gets. BOTS gets, I think, some grant funding from the federal government. And really, police departments have been really stressed the last couple of years. So they're not taking on a lot of the grants that, because the officers are working overtime to fill staffing positions. We've been able to utilize some of this overtime to reduce overtime that we need on the streets because we'll say, we might have six officers working on second shift, where we'd want to have eight, we'll take two overtime positions and have them go out and just do traffic. Do the work that we weren't able to do because of staffing levels. So there's been more money recently for that because a lot of departments have been turning it down. And we've been readily accepting it and using it to the point where they're offering us more money. So it might be 30 next year. Do they attract, do you have to send numbers in to where you got the grant saying, this is how many hours we used and they said, we've used it all up. Yes. Try to use it up before the year is over. So the grant periods may through October. So last year we got the grants, we got approval to apply for the grant in May. We rolled it out mid June. And I think by the end of July, we were like $10,000 into the grant already. It's 25% match. So we need to make sure that, at some point throughout the grant period that we have 25% of those funds are going out with the resources we have focusing in the same area. But this year, we, I asked for the application early so I can get it here so we can utilize it strategically between May and October for when we need it the most. So rather than having to cram it all in in a two month period, we've got five months not to figure it out. And we down side to this is the paperwork ring gussing. Yeah. I mean, with anything there's, there may be work, but you know, there's, we have supervisors that use this for development because they haven't done the paperwork but have managed the grants before so. Smart, yeah. I move to approve. Second. Great. Any other discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Chair votes aye. That is approved. Agenda item number nine. Our next meeting date is February. Looking for a motion to adjourn. Move to adjourn. Great. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Great. Meeting is adjourned at 447.