City discusses potential daycare closure, property tax levy

The City of Lennox met Tuesday, Oct. 13. 

The council held a public hearing on Resolution 2026-10-13-01-Fy2027 Property Tax Levy Request, as state code requires the City to hold a public hearing on the levy request for each fiscal year. Mayor Danny Fergen asked for proponents of the levy; hearing none, he asked for proponents, and Mitch Marcotte was the first to speak. 

“I received the draft 2027 budget this afternoon at 4:45 p.m. My concern now is whether residents have enough time and supporting information to evaluate the proposed levy,” he asked.  “I’m asking for clear explanations, reasonable opportunity to review the final figures before final decisions. If important assumptions remain unresolved, please allow further public review before final action to the extent legally permissible,” he continued. 

Chad Swier made a motion to approve, seconded by Lauren VanDriel; the motion carried unanimously.

City Administrator Nate Vander Plaats asked for discussion and possible action on the vacant position of Building & Code Official. 

“I had some conversation with municipal league late last week with Tea, and it sounds like they are going to go with a full-time position and we’re talking through what a ratio of 1:1 would look like,” he said, proposing a 60/40 time split for the position. 

Alderman VanDriel asked if the vehicle would be the responsibility of the 60%.

“That’s assumed, but that’s what I have in the agreement,” Vander Plaats answered. With no action needed, the council thanked Vander Plaats for his work on the issue this far.

Vander Plaats asked for discussion on the use of the CAPS program for emergency services and parks capital equipment. 

“We had some good discussions at the municipal league last week on this, and the basis of it seems to be a bit of debate between a few of us in the municipality, so we’ll get to the bottom of that relatively soon,” he said. “If you do that fire station and that pumper for $1.4 million, we’d probably have that done in two years. The downside of doing it that way is that you have to wait another two years to do another, which might get us to those midterm improvements of parts where we’re talking about facility improvements,” he continued. 

“I like the idea of the firetruck on the first go; I think it’s a cause people can get behind and in turn are able to get educated on the program and what it can be used for,” Swier said.

 “This will not be a quick process, especially on that first station to get real solid numbers, especially since we don’t have an RFP out at this point, but we’re going to team plan a little bit and figure out what’s next,” Vander Plaats said.

The City Council has identified securing a shared funding model for the ambulance department as a priority for 2026. 

“We went to the Turner County meeting last week, and they’re debating really strong support from the townships, and they’re really on board. They just found out about it, and they will be communicating with their townships and scrambling to figure out how to come up with this money by the first of the year,” Swier said. 

“What I like most about it is that it’s a Lennox Area Ambulance, and right now the Lennox residents are shouldering the entire cost of it and under this new model, everyone that receives this service will be kicking in in some way, shape, or form,” VanDriel said. 

Vander Plaats asked the council to consider Ordinance 672 Park Board. 

“This is just a clean-up ordinance from a few years ago when we updated our own budget ordinance so that it’s done later in the year so we can have better estimates on year-to-date expenses and what the next year is going to look like. What we didn’t do is update the park board budget ordinances at the same time, and the current ordinance requires they submit a submission in August, so this is pushing it back to the first day of October,” Vander Plaats said. 

Motion was made to approve by Swier, seconded by VanDriel, motion carried.

The City of Lennox must annually appoint specific positions. Appointments are awarded to City Engineer: Stockwell Engineers; City Attorney: Brett Lovrien;’ Cadwell Sanford Deibert & Garry; City Newspaper: Lennox Independent; City Depositories: Security Bank, First Interstate Bank, American Bank & Trust.

The City of Lennox has been notified that the local center-based daycare plans to close at the end of 2026 if the business is not sold. 

“The short of it is, we’re not going to have a daycare come January 27. I’m looking at this more of a contingency planning more than anything else. The long-term and short-term impacts of loss of child care for 60 to 80 kids is severe, it’s not a small thing for us. We are looking for discussion and get an appetite for how involve we want to get if at all on something like this,” Vander Plaats said. 

Mayor Fergen asked for public comment on the agenda item and Tyler Guthmiller stood to speak. 

“We have one kid and one kid on the way, so we hope to continue to have the daycare here. My wife is the counselor here in Lennox, and if the daycare isn’t here, she won’t be able to serve Lennox to her full potential, and with our kids getting older, if we can’t get into the daycare, what’s stopping them from not being Lennox Orioles anymore?” he asked. 

Five other voices echoed the concerns of losing the daycare and what it could mean for Lennox. 

“None of us want the daycare to close; we want to start with that. It’s not our intention to want to shut something down, there’s a long list of losses when something like that happens. Trying to find the best solution is what we’re here for,” Alderman Thiesse said. 

“If we’re going to do something that involves our guidance or assistance, we need to act sooner rather than later,” Bill Daugherty added, requesting to see the financials before the next meeting.