The Voices of Stuart

New Park Equipment Going Up (Updated)

thevoicesofstuart — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 03:36:23 +0000

By Peggy Schlichter

Volunteers and city employees gathered today to install new play ground equipment in the park and at the soccer field. Installation will be completed early next week. These are from the park. When I go out tomorrow I will get a couple of pictures from the soccer field.

Soccer Field

Posted in City News

Agenda, November City Council Meeting

thevoicesofstuart — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:53:19 +0000

Here is the agenda for the Monday night City Council Meeting.

Agenda, November City Council Meeting

Posted in Agenda

Election Results

thevoicesofstuart — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:17:23 +0000

By Peggy Schlichter

Congratulations to the winners.

Mayor – Dick Cook

Council Members – Bryan Belden, Neal Crawford, Matt Funk and Wade Chafa.

Posted in City News

Happy Election Day (Updated)

thevoicesofstuart — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 06:10:32 +0000

By Peggy Schlichter

Polls are open from 12 pm to 8 pm at the Congregational Church.

Good Luck to all the candidates and Happy Voting.

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Update – Here is the link to the election results at the Guthrie County Auditors Office. The results will be posted late tonight.

Election Results

Posted in City News

October City Council Meeting

thevoicesofstuart — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 01:55:31 +0000

By Peggy Schlichter

Mr. Sherman was not present for the meeting.

This was a nice short meeting with minimal discussion points. All items were approved as listed.

The Hotel/Motel Tax Committee discussion was tabled until the next meeting.

The council donated $500. to the “Trees Please” Program.

The Utility Bill for the work done on the new city building was settled for the original estimate price of around $26 k. The council approved the payment minus the tax that was on the bill.

The underground electrical work to the new waste water treatment plant will be done by the city utility for a cost of approximately $50k. The estimate received from the construction contractor was $99 k.

Police – The effect date of Officer Baird’s “no notice” resignation was September 25th. Sgt Larsen was called back off of leave to assist in coverage.

There have been a couple of applicants for the open police positions. Only Martin Miller is being considered but no decision will be made until the background check comes back. He was here previously and resigned on good terms. He has now completed his police science degree. If hired, he will still have to attend the police academy.

Posted in Council Meetings

Agenda, October City Council Meeting

thevoicesofstuart — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 00:56:51 +0000

Here is the agenda for the Monday night City Council meeting.

Agenda, October City Council Meeting

Posted in Agenda

Agenda, Special Meeting (Updated)

thevoicesofstuart — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 22:37:24 +0000

Here is the agenda for the Wednesday night city council special meeting.

Agenda, City Council Special Meeting

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Update – The Mayor and Mr. Belden were not in attendance for the meeting. A counter offer was received from Septagon for the 800 sq. ft. addition at a cost of $197.2 k which includes engineering and architect fees. The council made and passed a motion to accept the counter offer with Mr. O’Keeffe voting no. This leaves about $80 k available in the building contingency fund.

Posted in Agenda

Mayor And Council Candidates

thevoicesofstuart — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 19:37:00 +0000

By Peggy Schlichter

For the office of Mayor these are the three candidates:

Dick Cook

Kevin Pieper

Peggy Schlichter

There are five candidates for four council seats. They are:

Bryan Belden

Wade Chafa

Neal Crawford

Matt Funk

Dorothy Karradi

Posted in City News

September City Council Meeting

thevoicesofstuart — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 05:43:43 +0000

By Peggy Schlichter

The council logged another long meeting last night going past 10pm. I had to leave a few minutes before 10 to keep a previous obligation to sit kids overnight so I did not hear the old/new business discussed.

Two topics lasted over an hour each. One will be covered under a separate post that I probably will not get to til tomorrow evening. The rest I will try to cover in this post.

North 2nd Street Storm Sewer Project – Drake Construction was awarded the storm sewer improvement project. If you remember from previous posts this increases the size of the storm sewer line and outflow down 2nd Street to the other side of N. Harlan to alleviate the property flooding that occurs due to the undersized lines.

City Hall. Library, Police Building – This is one of the topics that ran long. The payments and change orders 2 and 3 and furnishings were approved. The payment for the electrical work was tabled based on the bill from the City Utilities being questioned for accuracy. The bill stated 475 hours of labor to remove a pole and bury the primary. Mr. Ashour is to get with the Utilities and get it figured out.

The major part of the discussion centered on change order #4 which was the estimate of $238 k for a one story addition of 800 sq. ft. to the new building. Most of the discussion questioned the cost vs the benefit of the additional footage. Based on the estimate the addition is substantially higher per sq. ft. than what is being paid for the rest of the building. The council questioned why and was basically told by the city architect that is normal once construction starts and equipment/ personnel have to be brought back to do the additional work. The remainder of the discussion centered on the amount of money in the contingency fund that this change would be paid from. What other items still had to be paid from that fund and how much would be left. Primarily that if they went forward with the addition it would use up almost all of the contingency fund. The council agreed that it was more than they wanted to pay but decided that they would make a counter offer to the contractor. The council then made and passed a motion to counter offer not to exceed $160 k for the 800 sq. ft. addition with a “take it or leave it” clause.

Sewer Project – October 12th at the next regular council meeting was set for the public hearing on the SRF loan for the new waste water treatment facility. The remainder of the discussion was about the cost estimate provided by the Utilities to run the necessary power to the new plant. The first estimate was for $36k to run overhead lines and the second was for $50k to run the underground line. Mr. Aldrich pointed out that the utility policy is for all new construction to have underground lines run. The council asked if they had to use the city utility to run the lines and was informed that they did not. With the council already leery about the utility bill for the electric for the new city building they decided to have Mr. Aldrich get a quote from the contractor to run the line to see if they had a better price.

Aquatic Center Project – The change order for the project was not passed. The original contract was for a kiddy slide and the change order was for a family slide so parents could slide with their younger children. Mr. Aldrich found out just before the meeting that the manufacturer of the slide has a height limit on the slide of 48 inches which would preclude adults using the slide. Just having a wider slide that did not afford parents the ability to slide with the younger children was not enough to add $4o k to the project.

Midwest Partnership Annual Contribution – The council made and passed a motion to make the annual contribution.

City Code Amendments – The council made and passed seven amendments to the city code to bring them in line with Iowa Code. No specifics were announced. The effected codes were: municipal infractions, parking violations, hazardous waste cleanup, public morals, abandoned vehicles, property disposal and off road vehicles. Second and third readings were moved and passed and the changes are in effect.

Athletic Sports Complex Board - Mr. Bump provided a draft 28E agreement to the council for review to reestablish the old support and improvement agreement between the school and the city for the maintenance of the sports complex. He further informed them that the school was only interested in a short term agreement since they plan to have the necessary fields at the new high school in a couple of years. The council is to review the draft and provide input to Mr. Bump.

Economic Development Grant for Dwyer Auto Body – The council passed the resolution.

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The police discussion will be under a separate post.

Posted in Council Meetings

Agenda, September City Council Meeting

thevoicesofstuart — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 03:33:41 +0000

Here is the agenda for the Monday night City Council Meeting.

Agenda, Spetember City Council Meeting

Posted in Agenda