BY PER PETERSON
editor
For anyone wondering why they can’t take care of driver’s license matters or do any sort of business at City Hall after 4 p.m., there is a plausible explanation.
The question was brought up at Monday’s Tracy City Council meeting. The answer revealed that there is a tight timeline City employees have to follow to wrap up business for the day, and closing the door at 4 p.m. buys them just enough time to meet their deadlines.
The 4p.m. question arose after council member Seth Schmidt asked City of Tracy Finance Director Tyler Twistol what the best time is for the public to conduct business there.
“Is there a certain time for the public that’s better to come than others” to do something like renewing their license? Seth Schmidt asked Twistol.
“It’s slower from about 8-10,” Twistol said. “Usually, it’s slower in the morning, then all of a sudden it really goes up. Also, it’s completely random. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday last week, it was completely slow, then Thursday and Friday I was going all day long.”
Tracy City Administrator Jeff Carpenter then interjected and asked Twistol to explain the 4 p.m. closure.
“We close at 4 because we’ve got to get all the payments printed, and then we have to reconcile the numbers that we came up with and what the State came up with,” Twistol said. “We need to make sure everything matches. Balance the drawer, get the deposit ready for the bank the next day … we have to check our inventory, too.”
Duties like reconciliation has to be completed at a certain time of day, every day, said City of Tracy Deputy Clerk Diane Campbell, “otherwise it will carry into the next day, and that just throws everything off.
“We have people that don’t know when to come in — don’t come in at a quarter to 4,” Tracy City Administrator Jeff Carpenter said. ‘We’ll try to get you in, but it’s a necessity that we have the doors closed at 4 o’clock to get everything taken care of.”
Twistol said since there is no way to tell how long any transaction or routine business might take, closing at 4 p.m. prevents City employees from working past 5 p.m.
“Last Thursday, someone came in and we thought their transaction wasn’t going to take too long, and it ended up going until 4:10-4:15, and I hadn’t gotten any payments in for more than half the day,” Twistol said. “I was putting things in until 5 o’clock, and then doing all the reconciliation and didn’t get out until 5:45.”
He added that on slow days, end-of-the-day business can be taken care in a matter of 10 to 15 minutes, but on busy days, which most are, it takes considerably longer with the deadline clock ticking.
In other business from Monday …
• The council approved rural fire contracts with area townships for 2025-26. The current contracts are: Holly Township, $5,931; Monroe Township, $21,747; Shetek Township, $14,498; Amiret Township, $23,065; Custer Township, $3,954; Gales Township, $6,590; Springdale Township, $7,908; and Sodus Township, $2,636. This is the final year of a five-year contract.
• The council approved a State of Minnesota Joint Powers Agreement with the City of Tracy on behalf of the City Attorney and Police Department.
• The council approved a resolution to authorize the transfer of $150,000 to the City of Hallock on the condition that the City of Hallock agrees to the repayment of entitlement dollars to the City of Tracy in FY 2026. The City of Tracy is entitled to $150,000 each year in entitlement, and $75,387 of entitlement funds from 2022 will expire if not used in 2025. The City of Tracy does not have a federally-funded project planned for 2025.
• Important dates to remember: The Tracy Aquatic Center will open on Saturday, May 31. The anual Burgers, Bands & Brews event in Central Park will take place on Saturday, June 7.
• A plant sale to raise money for parks will be held from 4-8 p.m. on Wednesday, May 14, at Central Park.
• The council approved a predesign plan for the community center and authorized Bollig Engineering, Inc. to provide a new Task Order for Basic Architecture Service for interior renovation with more extensive work at the exterior envelope of the building at a cost of up to $815,000.
