Government : City Council discusses construction of New Splash Pad, New VPR Director and misc

The City Council met in session on December 27, 2018, at City Hall. Among the business that they discussed, the minutes from the December 13th meeting, Library Board meeting of November 13 and December 12th, as well as Parks & Rec board meeting minutes of December 13th and the Airport Commission meeting minutes from December 19th were all received and filed. New Parks and Rec Director Matt Boggess was appointed as the new Parks and Recreation Director. “I want to the thank the council and the Parks board and everybody else. I know that my wife and I are extremely excited about the opportunity to step in and to lead the department. We're excited to raise our family here.” Boggess said. The assistant Parks and Rec director compensation package was discussed. The council discussed the housing to being mandated for the assistant director. The understanding is so that there will be someone on hand, like a park ranger would be. Someone would be on site to cover any sort of activities, or things at the pool or the need for a quick response. The compensation package was updated to include, a membership to the National Parks & Recreation Association, but everything else will remain the same. Advertising for this position will begin next Wednesday. Splash Pad The splash pad was approved and the plan is to have that up and running by this summer. Some of the details discussed concerning the splash pad included the amount of water that it would take to run the splash pad. The maximum amount that could be used would be 150 gallons per minute. To do this, all of the functions of the splash pad would have to be in use at the same time. There will be various areas of the splash pad that can be programmed to run at different times, or it can be shut down at lunchtime to save water or on days that it is raining it can be shut down. There was also discussion about the water being reused like a pool or if it just flows through. After discussing the options with other splash pad operators in the area, it was decided that the best choice was for the splash pad to be a flow-through type of splash pad. The setup cost was much cheaper as well as the cost to continually run. The government requires inspections like a pool if the water is recycled through the splash pad. The splash pad that we will be building has the ability to add on to it if we decide to do so at a later time. While planning the splash pad, the one comment they heard was that others wished that they had built larger, so the plan is to make it large enough so that we aren't wishing the same thing down the road. Tractor There was a discussion about replacing a 2000 Case tractor that was bought new. The 19-year-old machine is used by the street department for mowing, leaf and snow removal. Currently, the main shaft of transmission on the tractor is broken and the attachments have other other problems as well. The problem is with the age of the tractor parts aren't available. The cost to repair, if it can indeed be repaired, would be $13,000 for the $44,000 machine that according to Rick Erickson, has had problems from the beginning. A new tractor is in the budget for next year. A discussion was held concerning buying a used machine versus a new machine, with a difference of about $8,000. The city will be gathering bids for a new tractor and attachments. New Debt Service Fund A motion was made and approved to transfer funds to the Debt Sevice fund. The Cedar Valley Times and The Vinton Eagle were appointed the official newspapers. There was a discussion about adding a meter charge for use of the large water meters to cover the cost of replacing the larger meters used for people that need to occasionally haul water. Chris Ward explained how that he and City Attorney Bob Fischer attended a seminar about how agendas and meetings are conducted. Discussing how asking for additional old or new business can't be asked. Everything that requires action cannot be discussed. Items like this would need to be added to the next meeting agenda. A discussion was held about the safety of the intersection of 1st Ave. and 3rd St. Nate Edwards expressed concern about the inability to see traffic coming from the south on 1st Ave. No decisions were made. Safety on E. 13th St. south of Evergreen Cemetery was also discussed. The speed of the traffic on that road changes to 35 mph. after passing the Lutheran Church lot, and the danger to little children living on that street was also mentioned, but no action taken. The flood buyouts for 2 houses was approved by the Federal Government shortly before the shutdown. The state level had been approved and the federal approval was the final step. City Administrator reported that the Iowa Department of Economic Development made a surprise inspection of 4th St. and they were thrilled with the progress. Mention was made that Officer Nesbit also finished his training at the academy is currently training with the city.