Council Work Through Issues

Members of Brandenburg City Council met during their regular monthly Monday (12/8) night.

The council heard and approved the second reading of an ordinance adopting changes to the personnel policy. Council members discussed the city budget items and the progress of the recently enacted Occupational Tax. City leaders said the process is still evolving and the reporting and payments are slowly increasing as book keepers are adding the reporting to their routines. Several questions are still being asked concerning the calculations for reporting. Several business have yet to provide their reports and have until January 31st to provide the third and fourth quarter reporting and payments without penalties.

At the beginning of the meeting, representatives from the Maple Grove tenants union asked if anything had been done related to their requests for help in addressing maintenance issues at the apartment complex. Mayor David Pace and Police Brian Hagg said they had not received written documentation and or pictures of issues as city leaders had requested of the group the past several months. The residents commented that they had verbally told city leaders about the issues. Chief Hagg replied that he couldn’t take any action until he had a written complaint or list of grievances to act upon. The council took no action on the matter.

City Clerk Amy Haynes reported to the council that donations are down for this year’s Christmas By The River. She said the event had been open for nine days with traffic counts the average donation so far is between 37 to 47 cents per car. City leaders are looking into alternative methods to increase donations for the event which pays for the electric to operate the displays. During the discussion, it was suggested to look into a digital method to accept payments either on site of via the city’s website.

At the end of the meeting, Mayor Pace asked Jason French and Ryan Franks to address the council related to the potential to update the city’s sign ordinance concerning windows signage. The current ordinance only allows for seventy percent of a business to be covered. After some discussion on the issue, council members said it maybe time to update the ordinance in order to better serve the needs of local businesses. No action was taken and the issue is expected to be further discussed at during the January meeting.

The next regular meeting of the Brandenburg City Council will be held on Monday, January 12, 2026. You can watch the entire meeting in our “On Demand” section.