2025-01-22 WS & CC Meeting Minutes - (Approved)

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City of Centerville City Council Work Session & Meeting Minutes January 22, 2025 meeting. He stated that Council/staff will probably know the status of the federal government. He also stated that this just came up today, we all have been looking at what the news media is trying to tell us, and it is a mixed bag right now because it is just two days in. Attorney Glaser stated that the city could have an answer to My Solar Pod and you can see that they are emotionally and not happy, but it is unless Council was willing to take the $35,250 risk today the pause would be the responsible fiscal course. Administrator Statz stated that what it really boiled down to is a choice to pause or not to pause and he thought the financial risk of pausing the project is less than the financial risk of moving forward. He stated that council clearly knows that it is $35,250 versus $11,750 or not much more than that. He stated that his evaluation of a risk is that the risk to forward is higher than the risk to pause. Council Member Kubat stated that it could be less. Administrator Statz again stated that pausing for a few days should not implicate the city in large additional costs in his view. Motion by Council Member Kubat to direct staff to work with My Solar Pod for reasonable pause to the contract that allows the city to consider this at the future meeting, but to suspend work in the alternative if a reasonable compromise cannot be reached and to work with the city attorney to mitigate any litigation risk that the city may have over the contract. Attorney Glaser asked if Council Member Kubat was clear with his motion. Council Member Kubat restated the motion by stating: work on the contract to try and work out a compromise to allow the City to move forward, if this becomes clearer by the next meeting and to bring back to the next meeting any further information that develops about both the pause and litigation risks about the contract that is in place as it stands. Attorney Glaser stated that it is still unclear but rather this evening; yes, there is a pause or no there is not. Council Member Kubat stated yes, but to work for a mutually acceptable manner with My Solar Pod. Attorney Glaser clarified that Council Member Kubat was stating that a pause was ok and Council Member Kubat concurred. Lengthy discussion ensued regarding an additional contract, increase in contract costs, contractual obligations and potential defenses for the loss of government funding. Attorney Glaser stated that right now it has not reared its ugly head, but the city does need to worry about it for real. He stated that it is unfortunate of the position that we have put this company in, but we did not really put it in that kind of position, that happened because of the federal government looks like it may pull the grant away and the city has some defenses if that were to come about. Administrator Statz stated that does the motion include a provision that if staff ascertain the risk of the cost to pause the project will exceed the $35,250 that the city should continue going forward with the project before staff comes back in two weeks. He stated that if they have good evidence that shows that they have got costs that the city will be responsible for that they got to move on now and they are going to show us that they have $50,000 worth of costs put into this and if the city does not do the project two weeks from now that we will be responsible for that and he stated that he just could not believe that and lets just say they do is council giving staff the authority to move forward with the project to avoid those costs. Council Member Kubat withdrew the motion. Additional discussion took place including if the project was to exceed the $35,250 and still owe them and not getting anything out of it would make sense to move ahead with the project otherwise the city is really throwing money into the wind, if the grant went away Page 11 of 16