| Ordinance
passed
The Cottonwood City Council passed an ordinance addressing water and sewer service outside the city limits and tabled action on one dealing with solicitors at their July meeting Monday, July 8. The ordinance that was passed was prompted by upcoming dealings with Ironwood LLC and the former Job Corps housing area but is designed to address service to any applicants outside the city limits. Case by case issues can be dealt with through resolutions. A spate of complaints about recent door-to-door salesman prompted police chief Terry Cochran to ask city attorney Joe Wright to draft and ordinance dealing with solicitors. With some of the council members expressing misgivings about adding more rules, Wright suggested an alternative. He suggested having a “do not solicit” list for citizens. This would be somewhat simpler than the permit system in the proposed ordinance. The council decided to table the ordinance indefinitely and have Wright draw something up regarding the “do not solicit” list. Bill Ray of Allied Wireless, a subsidiary of AT&T, appeared before the council. He said Allied would like to offer service but co-locating on the Verizon tower may not be feasible for the coverage they want according to their radio frequency (RF) engineer. It had something to do with the heights available for them on the current tower. Ray suggested another tower in the same vicinity. With the animosity created by having the current tower built, the council did not want to even look into having another tower in that area. Councilor Ron Grant said, “What your RF engineer wants is not our (the city’s) problem.” Ray said he has located towers in other community on other existing structures as well. The elevators and water towers were other possibilities. Grant asked him to come back with some further information with 1st option being co-locating on the current tower. Other possible locations would be a distant second option. A second tower near the current site was not deemed an option by the council. In other business Laurine Nightingale and Donna Wassmuth of the Prairie Community Library had previously asked the council about painting a scene of some kind in the stairwell entrance walls of the Hall. Katherine Nida would like to do that as her high school senior project and comes recommended by the high school art teacher. Mayor Denis Duman asked that they be sure to use the proper paint and primer so that it will last. Shelli Schumacher suggested having a fund set aside in case there are future problems so they can be either painted over or fixed. The council gave their go-ahead with Schumacher, as Land and Buildings Commissioner, to oversee the project. In the reports Pat Holthaus reported they pumped about 5 million gallons of water last month and sold 4.5 million for about a 10% loss. The testing all came back good. Grant reported he and Roy Uhlenkott met with their engineers to discuss the issues with the Division of Environmental Quality. Issues concerned the land application permit and the dying trees. He said they plan to meet with the DEQ week after next. Grant said the city is well within compliance on their permit and is not sure why the DEQ is giving them grief. Something that may change in that regard is that the local DEQ representative is retiring. In the street report Jack Duman reported they have completed the mag chloride application. He also reported there was a conflict for the crew that was going to do the street project and it may now get done in late July. Uhlenkott will be doing some prep work to the streets concerned so that when the company is available it should go pretty quick. Those streets may wind up as gravel streets for a short time. He also reported that the state has some new grant proposal money. They have lumped the Safe Routes to School, enhancement and rails to trails moneys all into one fund. A letter of intent to request grant money needs to be filed by July 15th. Duman said he had to scrap a lot of the sidewalk improvement proposal due to the school building closure. He is going to focus on the East Street sidewalks to the Elementary School and some of the side streets, then look into the adult walking loop. He said superintendent Rene’ Forsmann would be working with him on getting some safety issues involved. In the land and buildings report Schumacher said they have received some of the money for the park tree replacement. It was reported last month that with probation lapsing on the individuals involved that may not happen. She said since then $195 of the $300 assessed has been collected. In other business a budget workshop was set for July 29. Pat Holthaus and Ron Grant are the council members who will be up for election in November. Uhlenkott asked about the dead tree at the former Kimber Grant house on King Street. He feels a substantial portion of it is within the state highway right of way. He would like to see something done with it before it becomes a real problem. Jack Duman said he would contact the State Dept. of Transportation. The meeting adjourned at 8:56 p.m. The next regular meeting will be Monday, August 12 at 7 p.m. |
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