Editor’s Note: The answer to the question in the headline may not be clear in the following transcription of a discussion held Monday on the Friday, Nov. 21, controlled burn in the slough between 3rd Avenue SE and Country Road and 6th and 9th Streets SE.

Because many accounts of the day’s action and other opinions were provided at Monday’s city council meeting, The Tribune is providing a full transcription. The burn was scheduled and lit to clear out the slough’s rodents, which were causing issues for homeowners. About 25 firefighters attended Monday’s meeting.

The topic was originally on the agenda a week prior to the meeting, but was removed before Ward 3 Council Member Joel Berg asked that the item be added to the agenda at the beginning of the meeting.

Some parts of the recording did not pick up clear audio or voices trailed off. Those moments are noted as inaudible.

Ward 3 Council Member Joel Berg: I’d like to know who authorized the burn? If anyone can answer that or who lit it, or who authorized it to burn?

Mayor Arland Geiszler: I was involved in that at the beginning. I had called the fire chief and put him in charge of the burn. He indicated that he would put it together and I’d requested notification of the law enforcement people and the radio station for notificiation to the public. That was on Thursday, I don’t remember the time of day, and then I went hunting, so I don’t know what happened after that.

Ward 3 Council Member Joel Berg: Our fire chief is here, isn’t he? Were you contacted about that by the mayor?

Fire Chief Dave Schneibel Jr.: Yes, I spoke to Arland about it.

Ward 3 Council Member Joel Berg: And your recommendation on was?

Fire Chief Dave Schneibel Jr.: We told him we’d take care of it, but we never committed to doing it Friday?

Ward 3 Council Member Joel Berg: OK, so we need to know who lit the fire because there was a lot of stuff that went wrong that day?

Fire Chief Dave Schneibel Jr.: The discussion was that I would take care of it. We’d make the notifications when we were ready to go. By the time I got back Thursday night, it was dark. It was dark when I went to work. I hadn’t had a chance to look at it yet. Assistant chief and I talked about it and neither one of us felt comfortable doing it with the weather that was forecasted on Friday, so we made no further contact with anybody.

Ward 3 Council Member Joel Berg: OK, so somebody had to light it, obviously, so who gave authorization to light then if the fire chief and assistant chief and the mayor did not?

Mayor Arland Geiszler: Who gave the authority? I can’t answer that. I wasn’t here.

Ward 3 Council Member Joel Berg: Well, who was in charge of the burn? The fire department wasn’t because they authorized not to do it or recommended not doing it.

Mayor Arland Geiszler: Well, the thing that, after the fact, visiting with the assistant fire chief. The decision not to burn was made at 6 o’clock Thursday night.

Ward 3 Council Member Joel Berg: Not to burn?

Mayor Arland Geiszler: Not to burn. But no one was notified. Public works was in position and instructed to be assisting the fire department. Some place in the spoke of it all, communications obviously broke down.

Ward 3 Council Member Joel Berg: OK, well the fire department recommended not lighting it, so you’re public works supervisor, so did you decide to light it or who told you to light it?

Public Works Supervisor Rick Larson: No, Troy called Dave. (Troy Munyer is a public works employee)

Ward 3 Council Member Joel Berg: And Dave said not to light it, didn’t he?

Public Works Supervisor Rick Larson: No, he didn’t.

Fire Chief Dave Schneibel Jr.: I said if you’re gonna do it you better send out a text and make sure you got fire support in town.

Public Works Supervisor Rick Larson: Which he did. (Inaudible) He called the law enforcement center.

Fire Chief Dave Schneibel Jr.: Darin talked to you between time and said (inaudible) not to light it. When I’m out of town, he acts as chief.

(Darin Williams is the Assistant Fire Chief.)

Mayor Arland Geiszler: Well, really at this point gentlemen, there was obviously a lack of communication that took place. The fire was lit, correctly or incorrectly. The fire did take out, did a heck of a good job of burning that one section of the slough. What good use is it to name call?

Ward 3 Council Member Berg: Because somebody has to be held accountable for going against the orders to do it, and doing it very unsafely.

Mayor Arland Geiszler: Well, there was no orders by any one here. That’s probably where the problem is. And, going forward, if this event comes up again, it definitely has to be handled differently. Two years ago, when I was on council, it was burned and there were problems there. This year, when that issue came up, I deliberately called the chief and asked him to be in charge of the burn, and he said he would take care of it. For whatever reason, within the communication between that and what happened, I don’t know. Darin, maybe you can help us out.

Assistant Fire Chief Darin Williams: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Approximately, 1700 on the 20th, me and Dave spoke multiple times and within in the next 12 to 18 hours. Approximately, at 13:11 on the 21st, we received a text from the LEC, the Sheriff’s Office, stating the city will be burning the cattails starting now. If you can help, they will start at 3rd Avenue. Meet there. That was around 1 o’clock on the 21st.

Mayor Arland Geiszler: And that notice was from?

Assistant Fire Chief Darin Williams: From the sheriff’s office. It was called in by the public works, which that’s good.

Mayor Arland Geiszler: And that’s what you were instructed to do? Who from public works called the LEC?

Public Works employee Troy Munyer: I did.

Mayor Arland Geiszler: And you were instructed to that by the chief?

Public Works employee Troy Munyer: Yes.

Assistant Fire Chief Darin Williams: About 1:15, I showed up at the fire hall. There was one other fireman there besides Troy Munyer. I advised them three times – I don’t remember it three times – but I advised them that the wind is in the wrong direction. Me and Dave do not endorse this fire. We don’t want a truck down there when it’s lit. If you do run into problems, have us paged out. We’ll help. We don’t have an issue with that, but as the fire department stands it’s the last Friday of deer hunting. We didn’t even have enough people there to even conduct a safe burn. There was three firemen there. That isn’t conducive. Well, then Andy Hallof was the other fireman who was there. He isn’t here tonight because he’s attending a vigil for something. I think Kevin Schepp has a letter from Andy.

The bottom line is it’s a public safety issue. Me and Dave both talked about it and we endorsed not having a fire. If you want me to keep reading it, I can.

And, like Arland, you said, we talked. Neil we talked. I spoke with many council members. It’s a public safety issue, and as me and Dave, Dave took the guidance from mayor that he was in charge of it. Dave was out of town at the time when he had the phone call or the text. And Dave does get text messages when he’s out of town. He gets phone. Every call he gets an email. He knew about it and me and him talked, and we were both in agreaance that the wind was out of the wrong direction. It never should’ve been lit. (Neil Lotvedt is a Ward 1 Council Member)

Mayor Arland Geiszler: It just seems to me that someplace between all of that the fire got lit. Some communication broke down some place. And the fire got lit. It burned the south half of that slough pretty darn good. Fortunately, there wasn’t any serious property damage. Obviously, a lesson for everyone in this room that if this occurs, situation comes up again, it has to be handled differently and we have to communicate better than what we did on this one.

The fire is out. It’s over. It’s covered with snow. What good reason is there to go further than that? I’ll open it up.

Ward 3 Council Member Joel Berg: There was laws that were actually broken. First of all, you need an application for open burning, which never got filled out.

Mayor Arland Geiszler: Ok. Whatever faults there were. That will be recognized.

City Attorney Bill Hartl: You know, Mr. Mayor, I disagree that we had to have an application for an open burn variance. The open burn chapter, which is in not the century code, it’s the administrative code. Not every farmer’s filling this out before they burn a ditch and before they burn they burn their cattails and before they burn their slough.

Ward 3 Council Member Joel Berg: I believe farmers are exempt from that.

City Attorney Bill Hartl: It does loosely relate to burning of standing material, but primarily this is geared toward refuse, waste and other combustible material. If we look, this wasn’t the only fire that day. There’s 10:42 a.m., there’s a controlled burn going to occur at 4:30 p.m., at the Hornstein farm. As the mayor pointed out, it’s a lack of communication here. The fire was lit. Apparently, the fire officials decided that evening prior, on Thursday, that they didn’t believe it should be burned. But that was not apparently communicated to city officials or the mayor, public works department. It can be handled differently in the future, but we’re not gonna undo the burn here.

Ward 3 Council Member Joel Berg: No, we’re not, but you can look down to it, it says the burn must only be conducted only if meteorological conditions are in favor. What else is there? No. 6, when burning’s in progress, winds must not be blowing toward any nearby city or occupied residence, adjacent to any public highways, or roads. What else do we have there? No. 12, if state or local fire officials determine conditions to be unsafe for open burning. Such burning must cease until conditions are deemed safe. I believe two fire officials deemed it unsafe.

Ward 1 Council Member Neil Lotvedt: On Thursday night, Joel?

Ward 3 Council Member Joel Berg: On Friday morning.

Ward 1 Council Member Neil Lotvedt: The wind did switch from their decision that was made on Thursday night. I agreed 100 percent. There would be no way you’d burn it with a south wind. It’d go right to your place.

Ward 3 Council Member Joel Berg: On Thursday night, so which way was the wind blowing on Friday?

Ward 1 Council Member Neil Lotvedt: West-southwest at 1 o’clock.

Ward 3 Council Member Joel Berg: Southwest at 1 o’clock?

Ward 1 Council Member Neil Lotvedt: West-southwest.

Ward 3 Council Member Joel Berg: At what was it?

Ward 1 Council Member Neil Lotvedt: 1:30 or whatever.

Ward 3 Council Member Joel Berg: (Inaudible)

Ward 1 Council Member Neil Lotvedt: What we’re doing here, Joel, if you want to bring up a safety situation into this.

Ward 3 Council Member Joel Berg: It is a safety issue.

Ward 1 Council Member Neil Lotvedt: OK, I was approached by one of your voting constituents that the skunks, the mice and everything else was in there. What was first thing I said? Go talk to the mayor. OK, the mayor talked with public works. Next time, we’ll send them to you and you can try to tell them when to do this. We had a very short window.

Ward 3 Council Member Joel Berg: Well, that’s what we were supposed to do is talk to the fire department about it.

Ward 1 Council Member Neil Lotvedt: We had a very short window that we could mow that because the water was frozen. You understand that?

Ward 3 Council Member Joel Berg: I understand that.

Ward 1 Council Member Neil Lotvedt: Cattails don’t burn unless they’re cut.

Ward 3 Council Member Joel Berg: I understand that.

Ward 1 Council Member Neil Lotvedt: And so they cut ’em. If the wind’s from the south it’s a really dumb idea. It can’t do it. So we wait from the west.

Ward 3 Council Member Joel Berg: So you think with the winds that were blowing that day, it was a safe idea to burn it?

Ward 1 Council Member Neil Lotvedt: Yeah, that was not a problem. It burned very nice.

Ward 3 Council Member Joel Berg: And it all blew northeast?

Ward 1 Council Member Neil Lotvedt: Actually, I think Steve Schneider got some smoke by his place, so that’s the southwest of the west. He was the one that came to my place the next day mad as the wet hen that behind him didn’t get burned that day. The lady who lives in, let’s see, Finley’s old house, I’m not even sure where that is, ran out and said please burn my backyard so that these critters don’t come into here. So the window, the snow was coming. OK. That’s why it got burnt because we really had one day left to make this burn.

Ward 3 Council Member Joel Berg: So we should disregard what the fire chief and assistant fire chief say because

Ward 1 Council Member Neil Lotvedt: The fire chief made that decision with a south wind is what Darin told me.

Ward 3 Council Member Joel Berg: And it was also just said that on Friday it was recommended not to burn it.

Mayor Arland Geiszler: Well, gentlemen, really

Ward 1 Council Member Neil Lotvedt: The wind was from the south in the morning. Absolutely.

Mayor: At this stage, it really is immaterial which way the wind was from. What we need to do looking forward is the fire department should be in charge of it, as I thought they were. Communications broke down and it didn’t happen as smoothly as it possibly should have been. We can talk for hours, if you wish, but the slough is burned. The critters are gone. Whatever, we need to use this as a lesson as to how not to do this in the future, communicate better to make sure that if something is set up to be done that that communication is passed down to the people involved. Beyond that, what are we gonna do at this point with what happened?

Fire Chief Dave Schneibel Jr.: I get really sick of this being considered a lack of communication because on mine and your phone call, you said the fire department was to be in charge, we were to handle it and we were to light it.

Mayor Arland Geiszler: I didn’t say light it.

Fire Chief Dave Schneibel Jr.: Yes, you did. You said you didn’t want the public works guys lighting it, Arland.

Mayor Arland Geiszler: You were in charge of it.

Fire Chief Dave Schneibel Jr.: Yeah.

Mayor Arland Geiszler: And if I’d include lighting it. Sure, go ahead.

Fire Chief Dave Schneibel Jr.: If I’m not around down there, I have none of my guys lined up to do it, we’re not in charge of it. It’s not a communication, it’s a lack of recognizing authority. Someone took it upon themselves to go down there and light that thing.

Mayor Arland Geiszler: OK, and everyone recognizing that, let’s make sure it doesn’t happen go forward.

Fire Chief Dave Schneibel Jr.: And besides that, we report to the public safety committee, so I ask that any direction that comes from this table in the future comes through the public safety chairman, in writing. I’m not operating off phone calls any more.

Mayor Arland Geiszler: Lessons learned. Councilman Kraft?

Ward 2 Council Member Gary Kraft: Kevin, did you have a letter?

Firefighter Kevin Schepp: I do. This was from Andy Hallof. He was on scene. I can sure read it, if you’d like.

Ward 2 Council Member Gary Kraft: I guess, if he took the time to write the letter. I just heard about it this evening. (Kraft also is a firefighter.)

Firefighter Kevin Schepp: OK, again this is from Andy Hallof regarding this fire.

“To whom this may concern, I, Andy Hallof got a text message stating the city may need help burning. So I stopped at the fire hall to see what was going on. Rick Larson, Troy Munyer and Brad Radomski were at the hall.

“Shortly later, Darin Williams showed up. Darin said, ‘What are you guys thinking? The wind is coming out of a bad direction.’

“Rick replied, ‘The mayor told us to burn it today.’

“Darin replied, ‘I would not recommend burning it today.’

“Rick said, ‘I talked to the mayor today. He said burn it.

“Darin replied again, ‘I don’t think today is a good day to do it.’

“Later that day, Troy called the body shop, Precision, and asked if he could get a few guys to bring fire trucks down to help.

“So Cliff and myself went to the fire hall and set the whistle off. Because we are not supposed to take any trucks out of the hall unless we are dispatched, Cliff, Tory and myself drove the Dodge to the fire. We were going to help the city guys finish burning. About that time, Zachmeier showed up and told Rick he is not able to burn anything else. So we sat and watched the hay bales burn that were already burning when we arrived to make sure nothing more started on fire.”

(Cliff Rameden is a firefighter. Craig Zachmeier is a Ward 4 Council Member and Bureau of Criminal Investigation agent.)

This was, again, from Andy Hallof, dated Dec. 1, 2014.

Also on the bottom, “The rumor about Darin was standing at the firehall not letting us take the truck out is not true.”

Mayor Arland Geiszler: “Any more comments?”

Ward 4 Council Member Craig Zachmeier: If I may Mr. Mayor. Most of you I’ve talked to about this, just so you know where I’m coming from, when that text came out that day, I thought the fire department was there. Cause I looked out my window, saw the wind and thought this isn’t a good idea. Fire department issue, well I guess they’re there.

When I got the text then and a phone call that the hay bales were burning, I’m not happy. I’m not happy necessarily that it got out of control. I’m more upset that nobody’s taking accountability for this. I’m not happy that nobody’s saying I lit, I shouldn’t have lit it, I made a mistake. I haven’t heard that from anybody, so I’m gonna go one step further. I did approach Rick when I saw that he was gonna light more and put a stop to it because the wind gusts were at 34.6 mph. This is common sense not to light a fire when it’s 34.6 mph cross winds.

Now with that, I also talked to the firemen on why they didn’t respond and put out the hay bales. It’s no difference than if some kid goes by and lights the hay bales, you put it out. So yeah, there’s some accountability there too.

But the bottom line is when I went there and I said, Rick, you gotta stop. He said the mayor told me to do it. I said I don’t care what the mayor said, I’m telling you you can’t do it. And his response was I had permission from the fire chief. I got lied to. I got out-and-out lied to. As a city councilman, as a member of that committee, I got lied to, by one of our employees.

Mayor Arland Geiszler: Definitely, I understood, councilman, that the attempt to start the second fire was stopped and that was good judgement. That should not have continued any further.

Ward 4 Council Member Craig Zachmeier: When I did that, here’s what happened. I said you gotta stop burning. The mayor told me to do it, he said a second time. I said I don’t care what they mayor told you. You can’t do it. You already lost control of the fire. You got hay bales on fire. That’s park board property. They don’t pay for the hay bales. I said I don’t care if they pay for the hay bales, it’s still somebody’s property. You lost control of it. It can’t be done. It’s a violation of law. Under Title 18, you have to have your back burning (inaudible)

At which time, he said again, the mayor told me to do it. I said, as a BCI agent, I’m telling you, you can’t light that fire. And, I should’ve never had to go to that point.

And so for the city to say let’s move on, this is a leadership issue. This is common sense that this shouldn’t have been lit. And I understand, this got blown out of proportion. Because as of my understanding on the 24th this was done. And now here we are with all the firemen and we have a big problem. If nobody at this table sees this as a problem, lying to a city councilman by one of our employees, that’s ridiculous.

Mayor Arland Geiszler: Anyone else?

Public Works Supervisor Rick Larson: Troy, what did Dave say to you when you called him?

Public Works employee Troy Munyer: Dave said if you’re gonna light anything, make sure you put a page across, have a text sent across to have backup.

Multiple people: (Inaudible)

Fire Chief Dave Schneibel Jr.: You said you that would stop by him after you talked to me.

Public Works employee Troy Munyer: (Inaudible)

Firefighter Jayme Berube: Mr. Mayor, I just have one thing to comment.

Mayor Arland Geiszler: Sure.

Firefighter Jayme Berube: And, Mr. Zachmeier or somebody said it was a 34 mph wind that day? I wasn’t here.

Mayor Arland Geiszler: Later in the afternoon, I guess it was.

Firefighter Jayme Berube: It hadn’t been lit yet at 34 mph. It was going to be?

Mayor Arland Geiszler: I think the first half had been lit, right?

Public Works Supervisor Rick Larson: The wind was at 5 mph when we (inaudible)

Firefighter Jayme Berube: And the forecast was for 5 mph all day?

Public Works Supervisor Rick Larson: I don’t know.

Mayor Arland Geiszler: The south half got burned and then the stop of the burning took place when, as I understand it, they were going to do the north half. And the decision not to burn was the right decision, of course.

Ward 3 Council Member Joel Berg: At 12:55 the wind was 18.4 mph.

Firefighter Jayme Berube: How did the south half get away then? Did it get away or not get away. It was meant to burn all that?

Mayor Arland Geiszler: I wasn’t here. I don’t know.

Ward 1 Council Member Neil Lotvedt: It didn’t really get away. It had the channel that the ice had formed in. The south half did burn. What happened is that the bales that were there, if they had had a squirt truck they probably would’ve saved the bales. There were two bales left there from last year or whenever. And I think (inaudible) Mattern added another five or six separate bales. So the mayor has taken care of that. That’s not a problem. The problem is the bales probably could’ve been saved. I don’t know. I’m not a fireman, by any means. It’s done. All we were trying to do was a good thing for the neighbors of the second ward.

Ward 3 Council Member Joel Berg: I live on that street. It didn’t bother me a whole lot, but the smoke did.

Ward 1 Council Member Neil Lotvedt: But the neighbors that have their backyards to them are the ones that really would like that cleaned up.

Ward 3 Council Member Joel Berg: And with the right conditions, it’d probably be a good idea, but not for public works to just go light a fire.

Ward 1 Council Member Neil Lotvedt: Well, you can only get out of there to cut it after it’s frozen.

Ward 3 Council Member Joel Berg: I’m aware of that.

Ward 1 Council Member Neil Lotvedt: And the snow was coming, so we’ll just let it

Ward 3 Council Member Joel Berg: So we should just bypass everything?

Ward 1 Council Member Neil Lotvedt: No, we’ll just let it grow up next year and you can let your constituents worry about it.

Ward 3 Council Member Joel Berg: Do you understand the safety issue whatsoever here?

Ward 1 Council Member Neil Lotvedt: There’s also a safety issue of rodents.

Mayor Arland Geiszler: This isn’t going to change the situation that took place.

Firefighter Levi Heisler: I have a question. I guess, in reference to what Lotvedt said, why is it OK for him to point out the fire department that we weren’t there to save the hay bales? Why doesn’t he point fingers at public works? They’re the ones that lit this fire.

Public Works employee Brad Radomski: Yeah, I admitted that. We admitted that right away. I called Kyler, I said your bales are on fire. We’re not denying that.

(Kyler Lemar owned the hay bales)

Mayor Arland Geiszler: Let’s all accept responsibility for our parts in it and go on because it’s not going to change the situation. It’s a serious lesson for everyone in this room that it should not happen in this manner again and it be done as per the requirements for burning. And I truly believe it should be handled by the fire department. The chief and the assistant chief in charge. What took place was unfortunate. It caused a lot of conversation and ill feelings, that are probably not necessary and we need to work together in this thing.

Couple more comments and we’re gonna go on.

Firefighter Bruce Odden: Did they have fire protection like respirators. Public works, do they have that, if they’re going to burn?

Mayor Arland Geiszler: You’ll have to ask firemen if they have those things. I’m not a fireman.

Firefighter Bruce Odden: We don’t know that. The public works, why were they out there with no fire, no suits, nothing. Good way to die?

Mayor Arland Geiszler: Good comment. One more comment.

Former Public Works employee Dave Engeland: I have a comment. We just were listening that somebody’s lying, and lied to a councilman, and it’s not even addressed. I mean, somebody lied here and you’re not even addressing what your councilman were just mentioning, brought up, that somebody lied to him.

Mayor Arland Geiszler: I can’t even comment. I don’t know if that’s factual or not until it gets to committees to handle

Multiple people: (inaudible)

Ward 2 Council Member Gary Kraft: To add to that, as well as putting words in your mouth, if you didn’t say them.

Mayor Arland Geiszler: I wasn’t in town.

Public Works Supervisor Rick Larson: I said the mayor wants it done. I didn’t say the mayor told me to light it.

Mayor Arland Geiszler: OK, we’re gonna to move on to old business. I think this topic has been discussed. It won’t happen again.

Mayor Arland Geiszler: New business. Councilman Zachmeier, you had an issue.

Ward 4 Council Member Craig Zachmeier: I just want sure that we all know, and I don’t know where it’s breaking down at. I put the 15th Street water project on back in August. It was taken off the agenda. I’m not happy by it. Now, I learned that he (Berg) had something that he said, yep, it’s gonna be on the agenda. It’s not on the agenda. It sure would’ve been nice for me to know that this was gonna take place tonight and all of the sudden I get bombarded because it’s on the agenda.

There’s an attorney general’s opinion in 2011 out of Cass County. If we as a council know that somethings going to be brought up at a meeting, it’s a violation of the open meetings law if we don’t have it on the agenda.

Also, as a councilman, if I want something on the agenda, it better be on the agenda. It’s on there for a reason and if any of the councilmen have problem to take it off, at least come up with a reason to talk about it. But this stuff that’s getting taken off the agenda, it’s a violation of open-meetings law and I don’t like it.

Mayor Arland Geiszler: To my knowledge, it was on the agenda, earlier in the week. Help me out girls (speaking to acting city auditor Phyllis Johnson and deputy auditor Candy Munyer, wife of Troy Munyer), your first agenda

Deputy Auditor Candy Munyer: I was taking up the agenda and there was a note that said take that off. I don’t know who said, I just did what the note said.

Ward 3 Council Member Joel Berg: I requested it be on there. I didn’t request it to be off.

Mayor Arland Geiszler: I don’t know. It was on there. You’re absolutely right, if a councilman requests something be on the agenda, it should be on the agenda. And it was on the agenda. Then when I got the agenda, a day or so later, it had been removed. Who removed it, why it was removed, I don’t know.

Deputy Auditor Candy Munyer: It was like a sticky note, saying take this off the agenda.

Acting Auditor Phyllis Johnson: I had to have gotten it from somebody, but I had so many things going on I do not remember.

Ward 3 Council Member Jim Hoffert: No. 2 on our agenda always gives us councilman the opportunity to add or delete items. If something has been inadvertently taken off the agenda that we want on, it’s an opportunity to put it back. I think we can chase our dog’s tail here a long time and get nowhere with that one, but this is our opportunity to add or delete.

Mayor Arland Geiszler: And that did happen tonight. Joel brought it up and it was added.

Ward 3 Council Member Jim Hoffert: Right, and I don’t know if we need to be overly aggressive. I feel that aggression about it being removed, is there a mole here, I don’t know. It’s inadvertent. There’s a lot of items usually. I can see somebody missing it.

Mayor Arland Geiszler: And councilman (Zachmeier), back to the August one, I would have no comment. I have no idea if it had been on there and been removed without request. I have no idea of knowing that.

Ward 4 Council Member Craig Zachmeier: They need to be on there. If a councilman brings it up to put it on there, it better be on there.

Mayor Arland Geiszler: Absolutely.

Ward 4 Council Member Craig Zachmeier: They inadvertently mistaken it. They said they had a note. Somebody told them to take it off. For now on if something’s on there, and I’m gonna make the motion that if we put something on the agenda and there’s a note that says something’s not to be put on there, we better have a signature so we know who’s doing it because it’s a violation of the open-meetings law.

Mayor Arland Geiszler: Yeah, I was surprised to see it removed.

Ward 3 Council Member Jim Hoffert: I’ll second that motion.

The motion passed. For more on the city council meeting see “City loses $21,000; televised meetings soon.”