August 12, 2026 Regular Council Meeting Minutes

Call to order:

The regular Randolph City Council meeting was called to order at 7 p.m. by Mayor Marie Jacob

Roll Call:

Present were Mayor Marie Jacob

Council Members Tony Price, Randy Ferguson and Keith Sande, Treasurer Sandy Nicolai and Clerk Mary Haro.

Also, in attendance was Bolton & Menk engineer, Brian Hilgardner.

Approval of Agenda:

We will add the addition of the fire department after Bolton & Menk Proposal for Services to agenda. Motion to approve the agenda with the addition was made by Price and seconded by Haro. All voting in favor, none opposed, motion passed 5:0.

Public Comments:

None

Prior Meeting Minutes

A motion by Jacob and seconded by Price to approve the July 8, 2026 Planning Commission and Regular Council meeting minutes with the correction on the Planning Commission minutes of the approval of the agenda was made by Jacob and seconded by Ferguson and the adjournment was made by Sande and seconded by Ferguson.

All voting in favor, none opposed, motion passed 5:0.

A motion to approve the July 15, 2026 special council meeting minutes was made by Ferguson, seconded by Sande.

All voting in favor, none opposed, motion passed 5:0.

A motion to approve the August 6, 2026 special council meeting minutes was made by Ferguson, seconded by Sande.

All voting in favor, none opposed, motion passed 5:0.

Treasurer's Report and Payment of Bills:

Motion to approve the payment of bills with the addition of the $1200 reimbursement for the variance to the Randolph School District was made by Price, seconded by Ferguson. Four checks did not print so Sandy will reprint them and we will need to sign them after she gets them reprinted.

All voting in favor, none opposed, motion passed 5:0.

Old Business

Dead Tree Removal

Mayor Jacob discussed the dead trees that are in the right of way. A citizen asked that we share the cost of one of the trees on their property and indicated that every city does it but we found out that is the not the case. Cannon Falls does take care of ones in the right of way. Faribault does not. City of Dundas manages dead trees but they bill the homeowner and assess it to their taxes if they do not pay for it. Vermillion does not pay. Hampton does pay in between the sidewalk and the street but no more than 50% and if they have no sidewalk, then 3 feet from the curb line. The city does have 1 tree in the park and the 2 stumps that need to be ground that belong to the city. Most of them belong to residents. If it becomes a hazard, we may have to discuss what to do – do we take it down and assess them. We should send letters to resident to ask them to take the dead tree down. There are 8 trees on 291st Street that should be removed. We should take them down and pay 50% of the cost and have the two homeowners pay the other 50%. Also, some of the trees are along County Road 83 so we should contact Dakota County to ask them about removing them. We can take some down and budget for future removal and grinding the stumps.

A motion to have Northwoods remove the 8 trees along 291st Street between Dawson and Dickman with a 50/50 cost share with the city and the two property owners and also the 1 in the city park by only removing the trees and not doing the stump or the dirt work this year, seconded by Ferguson.

All voting in favor, none opposed, motion passed 5:0.

We need to prepare an ordinance regarding dead trees so we will discuss this with our legal counsel. Also, we should let other homeowners know that Northwoods will be in the city to remove trees and they can contact them if they want theirs removed at their own expense.

Parking on Divers Path

Mayor Jacob made a motion to approve Otte Excavating on flattening out the area next to the road and putting down gravel on Divers Path, seconded by Sande.

All voting in favor, none opposed, motion passed 5:0.

New Business

Randolph School District – House Permit

Superintendent Mike Kelly came before the council for approval of a permit for the new house to be built on the vacant lot at 29122 Cynthia Path. He has meet with Mark, our building inspector, regarding the permit and has submitted two sets of the plans to him. They are going to wait on the septic in case they can hook up to city sewer. Motion to approve the house permit for the Randolph School was made by Haro, seconded by Price.

All voting in favor, none opposed, motion passed 5:0.

He also had a permit for a deck for Bob and Regina Wernimont that the school will be building. Mayor Jacob made a motion to approve the deck permit for Bob and Regina Wernimont, seconded by Sande

All voting in favor, none opposed, motion passed 5:0.

Comprehensive Plan Committee

The Met Council is going to assist us with our comprehensive plan that needs to be renewed every 10 years. Clerk Haro would like someone to assist with the process. Councilmember Randy Ferguson has volunteered to assist.

2027 Budget We have to approve our preliminary budget at our September meeting. Clerk Haro will have Ehlers assist with the budget. Clerk Haro will find out when Kyle is available for a meeting and then we will schedule a work session to go through the budget.

Change Order and Work Change Directive

With regard to the change order from NGE, we have had recommendations on how to handle it. Our legal counsel made her recommendations and we have had two closed meetings regarding it. We were considering them in default. There was a meeting with legal counsel and the surety bond company. Mayor Jacob made a motion to deny NGE’s proposed Change Order No 11, seconded by Price.

All voting in favor, none opposed, motion passed 5:0.

The work change directive basically tells them to go back to work and we’ll negotiate the costs later. Mayor Jacob made a motion to approve the work change directive with a contract time of 0 days (not yet estimated) and with a start date of Monday, August 17, seconded by Price.

All voting in favor, none opposed, motion passed 5:0.

It will legally demand them to go back to work and if they don’t get back to work, then we declare them in default.

Bolton & Menk Proposal for Services

Bolton & Menk’s contract is over the allotted amount and they are asking for additional construction administration fees (Task 10) and additional funding coordination fees (Task 11 which is overseeing the work at the ponds). Bolton & Menk are trying to save as much money as possible. A normal federal project of this size typically will have soft cost upwards of 20% of the project amount and right now we are at 12%. They want the city to be able to spend as much money on improvements than on overhead. Task 11 is overseeing the work that NGE will be doing at the ponds. This task is just to verify that they are working and how long each day but we want to make sure the ponds get built correctly. We do not have to pass this but it is based on 40 hours a week for 7 weeks at $152 an hour to oversee NGE which is approximately $42,000 for 7 weeks. We asked if we can take this on a week-by-week basis and Brian indicated that we could as we think having someone there for the whole 7 weeks is not necessary. Brian indicated that we can get creative and allow them a certain number of hours or money. Task 10 is for fees already incurred by Bolton & Menk. If we pass this task, it will get us whole with them.

Motion to approve Task 11 for 4 weeks at 40 hours, starting August 17th, with weekly updates to allow modifications to this task until our next meeting and then we will reassess this task at that time was made by Jacob, seconded by Price.

All voting in favor, none opposed, motion passed 5:0.

Task 10 is for time that Bolton & Menk have already worked and earned. We will table this until our next meeting.

Randolph Hampton Fire Department

Keith Sande indicated that the yellow lines on the cement slab in front of the fire department were to be repainted as part of the sewer project. They asked if the curbs and the no parking area could be painted yellow. They will check with Dakota County to see if they will paint the curbs and if they won’t do it then we will discuss this. We can put the painted lines on the cement slab to the list of items not completed for NGE to complete.

Sewer Project

There is nothing new to report.

Council Member Reports

Sande reminded everyone that the Chicken BBQ is this weekend and the road will be closed at noon until 12 am. Bingo starts at 3 pm and the vendors will be in front of the post office area.

Randy went to the watershed meeting and went to Chub Lake and the Mount Olivet Retreat. Clerk Haro noted that 82 people voted at the primary. General election will be November 3rd. The new election equipment worked great. Mayor Jacob noted that a resident indicated that the business that was going to purchase her property is no longer going to purchase it so it will be putting it on the market. She wanted to make sure that her driveway was fixed and it did get completed with the road project.

Adjournment

Motion to adjourn the meeting made by Price, seconded by Ferguson, the meeting was adjourned at 8:30 p.m. All voting in favor, none opposed, motion passed 5:0.

Respectfully submitted, Mary Haro