Council discusses vacancy of mayor

With the position of mayor currently sitting vacant, many people are wondering what the Hill City Common Council will do next. Originally, three options were presented: the council president can serve in the position as long as practicable, a special election can be held or the council can appoint someone to the position. 

However, the council recently found out that a special election cannot be held without an ordinance in place. The next general election is in June 2024.

For the appointment of a mayor, city administrator Brett McMacken said the person just needs to be a resident of Hill City. As for the term “practicable,” it is unclear how long this would be. Without a mayor, the council has no one to break a tie should one arise.

“From a staff perspective,” McMacken said, “we’re interested in knowing whatever process that you want to undertake.”

If appointing someone it was suggested that the city advertise the position for a while in case there are general members of the public who are interested. Once the list of names comes in, the council would need to decide what to do with the information. 

“It’s up to you as a group to figure out our path,” said McMacken.

“I think that the mayor position should be elected,” said alderman Jason Gillaspie. “I don’t think that it should be appointed by the four of us. I think it’s important enough that the residents in town have a lot of say in it.”

Gillaspie was interested in knowing if the city attorney was aware of any case law or could research similar situations. 

“I tend to agree with you,” said alderman Dale Householder. “I’m uncomfortable making a decision on who would be best deserved. It’s always been a voice of the people. I think the people ought to weigh in on this.”

Householder said he was disappointed to find out the twon could not hold a special election and also wanted to know if there was case law regarding the situation.

Doaty, too, said the position of mayor should be a people’s choice and was interested in the case law. With this consensus, McMacken said the question would be directed to the city attorney. 

Should a special election still not be possible, alderwoman Lori Miner suggested advertising the position of mayor. Then a public event and forum could be hosted to give the people a chance to hear the candidates. After that, the people could come to a council meeting to share their opinions. 

Additionally, Miner suggested working on getting an ordinance in place so the situation does not happen again. 

Also on the agenda was the appointment of a new park board member. Since the expiration of the last member’s term, there has been a vacancy on the park board. Stefanie Doaty, president of the park board, said the members reached out for applicants and Cassandra Ott responded. 

“She does live in Hill City limits so she meets the criteria requirements. We would like permission to go ahead and put her as a member of the park board,” said Stefanie Doaty said. 

Having spoken with Ott, council president Carl Doaty recommended her for the position. The council unanimously agreed. 

A position was vacant on the Planning and Zoning Commission (PZC) as well. There were four applicants. Doaty reviewed everything, discussed the information with PZC and talked to Householder, who has experience on the PZC. 

Considering this information, Doaty nominated Scott Sullinger, co-owner of the 1885 Steakhouse & Saloon. The council unanimously agreed. 

After being tabled due to a lack of information the Memorial Park concession lease from Hill City Youth Athletics (HCYA) was once again presented to the council. According to McMacken, this agreement has been in place for around five years and is generally renewed every April. 

This year the lease agreement was adjusted to allow other groups to utilize the concession stand by subleasing it and working directly with HCYA. 

Doaty reaffirmed that HYCA should not be able to make a profit off subleasing. The second thing Doaty brought to the council’s attention is outside entities wanting to use the concession stand and park would be going through HCYA instead of the park board or the city. 

The varied scheduling of HCYA was also a concern since the dates are subject to change.

“I’d really hate to see us go and turn this over to one sole organization that has control of the entire building for everybody else. That’s my only thought or concern. Is there a way to mitigate that so that we don’t have one organization locking it up to other entities?” said Doaty. 

Housholder pointed out that there likely was not an active park board when the lease was drawn up.

While understanding, McMacken said, “If you don’t want one group taking over any responsibility of the building, you’re going to have something like a special event permit for each time that they want to utilize that space. They’d have to work with the city. We can administratively do that, but it’s more paperwork in the long term.”

In addition, HCYA is storing its equipment and supplies there and is essentially already controlling that building. 

“How active does the city want to be in managing that space?” McMacken asked. 

In response, Doaty said there is a city employee who is supposed to be managing the park board. 

“To me, if we’re doing reservations for the pavilion through the city through the employee that’s managing the park and rec board, I don’t see why this couldn't be filtered in too. 

“Obviously it’s not something we’re going to figure out tonight, but I think as the park and rec board gets established, especially with all the expansion that has the potential down there, we need to maybe start looking at moving away from some of these leases and actually giving it back to the control of the city,” Doaty said. 

On the topic of scheduling, Travis Eckert with HCYA said it is a challenge with the variety of age groups. Also, a lot of other towns do not have a similar organization so HCYA is working with a lot of different groups.

“Trying to pin down exactly when our games are going to be and even how many is really tough,” said Eckert. 

In addition, Eckert pointed out that no other group has asked to use the space in the last five years. Rather, opening up the space would give other entities the potential to utilize the space. 

“We’re more than willing to take people in and make sure that they have the documentation that they need to sublease it to them,” said Eckert.

While seeing Doaty’s point with moving forward at Memorial Park, Householder said, “For the next year we’re probably OK. It’s something we’re going to have to look at down the road.” 

The council unanimously approved the lease. 

A variance request by Jude Wildeman was brought to the council regarding a property in the Beauty Hills Subdivision. The request was to reduce the setbacks in the front and south side yard from the standard zoning requirements of 25 feet setbacks on the front, rear and side yards. 

When excavating an area of the property, which has an elevation difference of around 15 to 25 feet, the applicant encountered heavy rock. As a result, meeting the required setbacks would create too high of a dirt bank on the side. 

Several other properties in the subdivision required variances to develop into single-family homes. The applicant met six out of eight Variance Review Criteria, and no objections to the reduction were received. The council unanimously approved the variance. 

A voluntary annexation request was also brought to the council. The 3.4 acre undeveloped parcel of land in question is located south of the applicant’s two multi-acre parcels and north of Park Street and Allen Gulch. 

Developmental services coordinator Dani Schade read from the PZC report that, “Any territory hereafter annexed shall automatically, upon such annexation, be zoned by the governing body and be subject to all conditions and regulations applicable to property in such district.” 

One member of the public asked if there were plans to subdivide the parcel into lots. However, Sullinger, as the owner, said it would be impossible to do anything on the parcel without dynamite. 

Additionally, Shade said that accessing the parcel would require a costly road off Allen Gulch due to the incline or a road going through the applicant's property. 

The council unanimously approved the annexation request.

The next meeting of the Hill City Common Council is Monday, Aug. 14 at 5:30 p.m. at city hall.