FAIRMONT– At the end of a three hour meeting on Monday, the Fairmont City Council discussed a few additional items, two of which were brought forth by Council Member Randy Lubenow and dealt with the Martin County Arena and proposed community center.

“It sounds like we’re kind of at a stand-still and there’s no agreement,” Luebnow said of a contact with the Fairmont Youth Hockey Association. “Since the sales tax did not pass (in Nov. 2024) for the additional phase of the community center, we need to get some kind of agreement.”

He said that the council needed to be fair to the citizens of Fairmont, the hockey association and the (Martin County) fair board by getting an agreement in place.

Council Member Britney Kawecki said she’s been requesting a work session prior even to the purchase of the ice compressors a year ago. She said she’s been wanting to see the contracts reviewed by legal counsel.

Interim City Administrator Jeff O’Neill said that he understands the frustration because it feels like things are at a stand-still, but that he has been in conversation with leadership from the hockey association and understands that there has been under-funding of long-term maintenance for many years and that the lack of financial planning has come to a head.

“Now we’re trying to figure out, going forward there’s $1.9 million for improvements that need to be made in the next two to 10 years. HVAC, roof repair, beams to be painted, sprinkler systems. All of that stuff and there’s no funds for this right now,” O’Neill said.

He said the association acknowledges that funds should go from the users to the city and/or fair board so that things can be paid for over time.

“We’re in the process right now of attempting to figure out how we can gain approximately between $60,000 to $70,000 per year that would be a rough estimate to cash flow these improvements over time,” O’Neill said.

The way that other ice areas in other communities are funded was mentioned and O’Neill said that anywhere between $200 to $260 an hour is charged for ice time.

“The rule of thumb is that 20 percent of those funds go into a fund to pay for long-term maintenance and repair,” O’Neill said.

He said the goal was to figure out a mechanism where the users pay for the long-term maintenance and that it wouldn’t just apply to the hockey association, but the fair board.

“Trying to figure out how we’re going to work together to kick start this capital funding effort. That’s the goal,” O’Neill said.

Council Member Jay Maynard said the council needed to consider that other cities operate the ice arena themselves whereas Fairmont, he said, owns half of the building but that the hockey association operates the building.

“We need to take that into account as we have these discussions,” Maynard said. “If they’re going to operate it, they get credit for that. They need to.”

Council Member Randy Lubenow acknowledged the day-to-day operations, but said if the association can’t put money away for long-term maintenance, the city could be an avenue for 20 percent ice time to help put money away.

“If you have profits from your gambling operation and so long to spend that and if you can’t pay for a $100,000 or $200,000 expense, then it never gets done. You have to have an avenue to put that money away and that’s what the charging of ice time by the city might be able to do,” Lubenow said.

Fairmont Finance Director, Paul Hoye, said that he understands that the fair board does not believe the city has a shared ownership of the building. He said that the fair bard only has a use agreement with the city for the building.

O’Neill pointed out that the agreement also says the city will contribute to the maintenance and repair as well.

“The city of Fairmont also isn’t getting any direct revenue from the building. Instead we’ve been contributing the money to build the building, take care of it and contribute $30,000 a year since 1985 and now we bought these new compressors,” Council Member Britney Kawecki said.

Council Member Wayne Hasek asked if the school should be paying for some of the costs as students are using the ice for the high school teams.

O’Neill said that with other area arenas, the school districts make significant contributions to the funding program.

“Since the hockey association runs it, they should be asking for some funds for the use of the ice that they can pay us for their annual contribution for long-term maintenance.. that only makes sense since they’re managing it,” O’Neill said.

Both Lubenow and Kawecki expressed frustration with where the process is at and what’s been done in the past. Kawecki said she wanted to have a work session and Maynard said he didn’t know if he saw the value in it, but said something needs to happen.

Next, the council briefly discussed another topic courtesy of Lubenow regarding signed “agreements to build a field house on property by Mayo Health Systems in Fairmont.”

Lubenow said back in 204/2015, he had joined with some members of Project1590 as a representative of the hockey association at the time to talk about a community center with a pool and hockey area.

“The sales tax passed in 2016 and I thought, ‘boy, we’re really going to get some movement on this.’ And then Covid hit and that really stopped things. And then we had some local involvement on whether the sales tax vote was legal so we’re kind of at a stand-still,” Lubenow said.

He said he’s recently had some good conversations with some key people and that he’s decided to give another month past his own personal deadline in order to keep moving the project and its plan forward.

“I think 10 years is about enough,” said Hasek.

Maynard said he’s had frustrations with the project delays but that he’s also had some good conversations with key individuals.

“I’m faithfully promised that things are moving and there will be something for us to consider,” Maynard said.

Earlier in the meeting on Monday, the council considered the direction it wanted to go regarding a city administrator.

The city has been without a full-time city administrator since November 2024 when Matt Skaret resigned following his six month review. Several weeks later, Jeff O’Neill began serving in an interim capacity and has been in the role ever since. This has been O’Neill’s second stint in the role as he filled in following the resignation of Cathy Reynold’s, prior to Skaret’s hire.

O’Neill on Monday suggested three options. One was to re-engage with Charlene Stevens, formerly of GovHR, now MGT, which has assisted the council in the past with recruiting a city administrator. Another option was to post the position internally to current staff. The third option was to delay the hiring process for the time being.

Maynard said a benefit of working with GovHR (MGT) was that if a candidate was selected but doesn’t last long, a new search would come at a reduced or no cost.

“I think we owe it to the citizens of Fairmont to take advantage of that,” Maynard said.

A motion was made to direct staff to engage with MGT for recruitment of the city administrator position. The motion passed.

In other business, the council:

— Voted to approve a resolution reinstating the local board of appeal and equalization.

— Approved a request from the Fairmont Fire Department Fire Relief Association to increase the pension benefit from $4,800 to $6,000 per year of service, effective Jan. 1, 2026.

— Approved a resolution requesting judicial appointment of a citizen to the Fairmont Charter Commission. The citizen is Myles Handerford and the appointment comes following the recent resignations of Alice Maday, Ronald Lindberg, Robert Gunther and Kasey Kasel.

— Approved the appointment of Jerry Edwards to the Housing and Redevelopment Authority.

— Approved the appointment of Council Member Britney Kawecki to serve as a liaison to the downtown committee.